Evaluation of Growth, Yield, and Water Productivity of Paddy Rice with Water-Saving Irrigation and Optimization of Nitrogen Fertilization
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Evaluation of water productivity and agronomic performance of paddy rice through water saving irrigation and nitrogen fertilization.
General comments
The manuscript focus on interesting subject and is suitable to Agronomy. However, I suggest more concise Introduction and focusing only on the subject of the manuscript. I have some doubts related to statistics. I do not understand why the authors chose to show only the value of LSD and only in one Table indicated the differences among values matched with small letters. Besides, the results only present the means without giving SD or SE though there were repetition for each variants. Generally, a manuscript is a bit sloppy, which needs to be corrected. Discussion should be more definitely more concise and focus more on explaining the results and not simply comparison if the results agree or not with other authors.
Some more specific comments I attached below.
The manuscript in its present form should be reconsider after major revision.
Specific comments
Abstract
Please explain the abbreviation WP.
Introduction
Be more concise in the Introduction. Listing which countries the rice is grown in does not explain the purpose of the manuscript
Figure 1
When the author decided to have value with different scale place use two different vertical axes.
General comments to results presentation. There is no information what do you have in the Figures and Tables. Are there means? If yes, there should be also information about standard deviation or standard error.
Table 3
Although you explain the abbreviation used here in the manuscript, but still the results should be self-explanatory. Thus, the Table should be the explanation of the abbreviation used in the Table.
Table 6
Here in part of the results were supported by the letters that indicated the statistical different values. However, why in the rest it was not included? Actually giving only LSD value is not so informative like indicated the difference between values.
Table 7
I think that instead of giving the number of tiller per pot it is better to give the number of tillers per plant.
Author Response
Review1 Report Form
Comments and Suggestions for Authors
Evaluation of water productivity and agronomic performance of paddy rice through water saving irrigation and nitrogen fertilization.
General comments
The manuscripts focus on interesting subject and is suitable to Agronomy. However, I suggest more concise Introduction and focusing only on the subject of the manuscript. I have some doubts related to statistics. I do not understand why the authors chose to show only the value of LSD and only in one Table indicated the differences among values matched with small letters. Besides, the results only present the means without giving SD or SE though there were repetition for each variants. Generally, a manuscript is a bit sloppy, which needs to be corrected. Discussion should be more definitely more concise and focus more on explaining the results and not simply comparison if the results agree or not with other authors.
Response on general comments
Point 1.doubts related to statistics. I do not understand why the authors chose to show only the value of LSD and only in one Table indicated the differences among values matched with small letters. Besides, the results only present the means without giving SD or SE
Response 1. Standard error has been included in results
Point 2: Repetition for each variants.
Response 2. Research comprised of two experiments (lowland and upland trials) with the same set up. Each experiment discussed the same variates.
Some more specific comments are explained below
Specific comments
Point 1. Abstract please explain the abbreviation WP.
Response 1. Abbreviation WP has been explained as water productivity in manuscript
Point 2. Introduction
Be more concise in the Introduction. Listing which countries the rice is grown in does not explain the purpose of the manuscript
Response 2.
Point 3. Figure 1, when the author decided to have value with different scale place use two different vertical axes.
Response 3. the use of two different vertical axes has been adopted to represent figure 1 as shown in manuscript
General comments to results presentation.
Point 4.There is no information what do you have in the Figures and Tables. Are there means? If yes, there should be also information about standard deviation or standard error.
Response 4. In the figures and Tables represent means of treatments. Information on standard error has been added
Point 5.In Table 3 although you explain the abbreviation used here in the manuscript, but still the results should be self-explanatory. Thus, the Table should be the explanation of the abbreviation used in the Table.
Response. Table 3 shows the treatment used in experiments, thus type of water management (alternate wetting and drying and continuous flooding) and fertilizer treatments thus Absolute control (ABC), 0, 60, 90,120 and 150 kg N ha-1. Thus this table explains abbreviations of treatments used in experiments not results.
Table 6
Point 7. Here in part of the results were supported by the letters that indicated the statistical different values. However, why in the rest it was not included? Actually giving only LSD value is not so informative like indicated the difference between values.
Response 6. Standard error and letters that indicates the statistical different values of means has been added
Point Table 7. I think that instead of giving the number of tiller per pot it is better to give the number of tillers per plant.
Response number of tiller per pot has been changed and expressed as number of tiller per plant in table 7
Author Response File: 
Author Response.docx
Reviewer 2 Report
The title of the manuscript is appropriate and reflects the contents of the paper.
The abstract describe the essential information in the work.
The introductory section adequately explains the framework and problems of the water consumption in rice production and study performed are clearly defined.
The methods used are appropriate to the aims of the study. Sufficient information is provided for a capable researcher to reproduce the experiments described. There are no additional experiments that would greatly improve the quality of this paper.
The results are clearly explained and presented in an appropriate format. The figures and tables are mostly easy to interpret and show essential data that could not be easily summarized in the text; however there is unnecessary duplication of data in the text.
The authors appropriately cite past literature with similar findings to theirs. The published literature is presented as background information and is connected to the specific findings of this study.
References are appropriate and adequate to related works and covered sufficiently in the list but are not numbered in order of appearance in the next and nor in alphabetical order.
Reference description depending on the type of work, doesn’t follow the instructions from manuscript preparation and is hard to check. In the text, reference numbers is not placed in square brackets [ ], and placed before the punctuation. References should be described as follows, depending on the type of work. Many references are not cited in the text, and the text contains authors who are not in the list of references. Changes are necessary.
Use the same font in text.
The English used in the article is readable and good enough to convey the scientific meaning correctly.
Comments for author File: 
Comments.pdf
Author Response
Point 1. References are appropriate and adequate to related works and covered sufficiently in the list but are not numbered in order of appearance in the next and nor in alphabetical order.
Response 1. References have been numbered in order of appearance in the next as shown in manuscript
.Point 2. In the text, reference numbers is not placed in square brackets [ ],
Response 2. In the text, reference numbers has been placed in square brackets [ ] as shown in manuscript
Point 3. Many references are not cited in the text, and the text contains authors who are not in the list of references.
Response 3. All references are cited in the text and all authors are in the list of references
Point 4. Use the same font in text
Response 4. Uniformity of font size in text has been followed
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
The present form of manuscript improved but still some of my comments was not answered. Why the authors used LSD? Why sometimes statistically non-significant value were matched with letters, and sometimes not. Besides, some information is presented twice, and it is hard to follow which will be included in the final version of the manuscript.
Author Response
Why the authors used LSD?
Response 1.
We used the LSD and standard error (SE). LSD was used so as to calculate the smallest significant between two means (as opposed to all of the groups together). This enabled us to make direct comparisons between two means from two individual groups. Any difference larger than the LSD is considered a significant result.
Why sometimes statistically non-significant value were matched with letters, and sometimes not.
Response 2. Correction has been done. Only statistically significant value have been matched with letters.
Besides, some information is presented twice, and it is hard to follow which will be included in the final version of the manuscript.
Response 3. The current manuscript shows the information for the final manuscript. The only 1 trial has been presented and the second trial was removed so as to ruduce the size of manuscript. Figures has been removed and data were presented in tables.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
