Soil Quality Restoration during the Natural Succession of Abandoned Cattle Pastures in Deforested Landscapes in the Colombian Amazon

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Dear Authors,

The current study assessed some of the soil physical, chemical, and biological properties in the Amazon region during the natural succession process in two main landscapes of the Colombian Amazon. The authors also generated and discussed the General Indicator of Soil Quality (GISQ) with the results.

I appreciate that all the sections of this paper are well written. The authors were able to document every detailed information needed to support the results obtained from the experiment. However, in my opinion, the only section that is a bit less developed is the introduction section, particularly the flow and rationality of the study performed.

Therefore, my only suggestion is to consider a revision and re-write the introduction before publication to this journal to make this paper more compelling and impactful.

Sincerely,

The reviewer.

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

agronomy-1469469

Soil quality restoration during the natural succession of abandoned cattle pastures in deforested landscapes in the Colombian Amazon

This study tried to quantify soil quality in degraded lands and natural regions. I think it has merit, but I'm afraid the paper still requires thoroughly editing to reach the level of international publications and before publication is granted.

The main issue is convincing of the novelty of the research and discussing it in respect of the existing research on the subject. The novelty of the research and method is missing in the present manuscript.

The abstract and the introduction sections should convince on the novelty of the work, and this can only be done by (1) acknowledging the existing literature on the subject; what has been done so far on the subject by referring to existing research studies with quantitative information, and reporting ones; referring to methods and ideas associated with other researchers (the previous soil quality indexing methods did not mention in the introduction); (2) discussing the existing finding and identifying research gap(s); critically discuss these existing works to summarize research advances and gaps in knowledge of the subject (3) clearly state the research objectives (Lines 66-68), which should be in accordance with the identified gaps.

However there some more comments and suggestions are listed below and also are annotated in the attached pdf:

L25: Please explain this method in detail and precisely.

L26-27: “After 10 years of natural succession, the physico-chemical and biological soil components were restored” this part of the results is worth extending and also presented with some quantitative results.

L35-38 and L39-42, L43-46, so on: Please avoid 2-3 sentences as a paragraph. You can either extend it or merge it with the next paragraph.

L39: “million hectares” change to “million ha”

L93-94: why a different number of polts were evaluated for the different representative regions?

L112: “Plots 10-20”, L118, Plots 25-40, please use the complete name for the plot.

L178: SOC (%), explain the abbreviation when the first time used. The method of measuring SOC did explain.

L20-206: include the detail of the “General Indicator Soil of Quality (GISQ)” method.

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Please see the attachment

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

The authors addressed the comments appropriately, and I don't have further comments for it. The manuscript can be accepted for publication in Agronomy Journal.