Investigating the Spatial Structure of Soil Hydraulic Properties in a Long-Term Field Experiment Using the BEST Methodology
, Emanuele Barca 2,*, Mirko Castellini 3, Francesco F. Montesano 1 and Anna Maria Stellacci 1
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
The authors have done a painstaking work to collect the soil samples and conduct analyses. But as mentioned in the first objective (L108), it is difficult to clearly understand the impact of soil management practices (minimum-till or no-till) on the measured parameters. I see a lot of data but no particular reference to the impact of soil management practices in the tables or figures? To confirm my curiosity, I did a search for the word 'tillage' (or 'till') throughout the paper, there was none found in the Result section and Discussion section has only one (L435). Neither was the acronym 'MT' or 'NT' found elsewhere than in L131. 'Soil/tillage management' was not mentioned in the Result section and appeared only three times in the Discussion, but not particularly related to the results in this work. It appears authors mainly focused on the second objective showing sets of spatial indicators, etc.
There was no mention of the impact of crops wheat and chickpea, whereas in L135, authors said 'in order to assess the combined effect of soil management and crop type on soil quality'. This was not substantially supported in the present paper.
Authors need to carefully go over the paper as there are some minor omissions that need to be edited.
The authors need to work on the decimal values in the tables. There should be consistency. Do you really need five six decimal places?
What do figures 2 and 3 represent? Are the heat maps for soil depth, soil surface, or what? Not very clear.
Author Response
REV 1
The authors have done a painstaking work to collect the soil samples and conduct analyses. But as mentioned in the first objective (L108), it is difficult to clearly understand the impact of soil management practices (minimum-till or no-till) on the measured parameters. I see a lot of data but no particular reference to the impact of soil management practices in the tables or figures? To confirm my curiosity, I did a search for the word 'tillage' (or 'till') throughout the paper, there was none found in the Result section and Discussion section has only one (L435). Neither was the acronym 'MT' or 'NT' found elsewhere than in L131. 'Soil/tillage management' was not mentioned in the Result section and appeared only three times in the Discussion, but not particularly related to the results in this work. It appears authors mainly focused on the second objective showing sets of spatial indicators, etc.
ANSW1: We are grateful to the reviewer for the work accomplished and for the appreciations expressed.
We got that there has been a misunderstanding about the aims of the manuscript. The two objectives of this study, reported in the abstract and in the Introduction section, were:
“i) assessing the spatial structure of soil physical and hydraulic properties in a long-term field experiment where minimum tillage and no-tillage were compared; ii) defining a set of spatial indicators for gaining an integrated view of the studied system”. Therefore, the comparison between the two soil management strategies (No-tillage, Minimum-tillage) was not the objective of this work. Conversely, as specified also in the manuscript, this will be the aim of a next work where the two soil management strategies will be compared using linear mixed models (LMM) and taking into account the spatial auto-correlation assessed in the present work. “This study will also represent a preliminary step for the inclusion of the information on spatial structure of the investigated variables into linear mixed effects models taking into account residual autocorrelation.”
Consequently, we deem to have centred both the declared objectives and not only the second. Going more in depth, the assessment of the spatial structure of the physical and hydraulic soil properties, besides being of great importance for incorporating the information of spatial residual correlation for the advanced ANOVA analysis (LMM), is crucial in the scope of precision agriculture. The mapping of soil properties can advantage the farmers in the optimizing the management of agronomic techniques, such as irrigation and fertilization.
We understand that there were some unclear points in the manuscript and, therefore, we introduced some changes in the title and in some sentences within Introduction, Materials and Methods and Discussion sections to improve the clarity of the contents.
There was no mention of the impact of crops wheat and chickpea, whereas in L135, authors said 'in order to assess the combined effect of soil management and crop type on soil quality'. This was not substantially supported in the present paper.
ANSW2: At line135, it was reported the description of the long-term field experiment where our study was carried out. To avoid misunderstanding we eliminated those details.
Authors need to carefully go over the paper as there are some minor omissions that need to be edited.
ANSW3: Done. Thanks for the suggestion.
The authors need to work on the decimal values in the tables. There should be consistency. Do you really need five six decimal places?
ANSW4: Done.
What do figures 2 and 3 represent? Are the heat maps for soil depth, soil surface, or what? Not very clear.
ANSW5: As resumed in Figure captions, in figures 2 and 3 are reported the maps of the interpolated values of the physical and hydraulic variables under study: Fig2 (BD, θi, θ10, θ100, θ15300 , Ks.) and Fig.3 (PAWCe, RFCe, PMACe, ACe.). The interpolated values were computed starting from the 72 georeferenced samples collected on the field experiment, whose values were analysed by means of the geostatistical approaches described in the manuscript.
Reviewer 2 Report
Manuscript Number: agronomy-1971865. Rev-1, October 19th, 2022
Dear Authors, here I have listed my comments.
The manuscript agronomy-1971865, entitled “Investigating The Spatial Structure Of Soil Hydraulic Properties In A Long-Term Field Experiment Comparing Different Soil Tillage Strategies” submitted by Popolizio et al. reported and discussed the results of a field survey on two different tillage systems within a frame of a long-term experiment regarding soil where the soil hydrological properties were assessed by BEST method. Data retrieved from survey were then analyzed and space modelled.
In general the experimental in field and in lab seems to have been conducted appropriately with an adeguate application of BEST method. However, both the modelling part of the results as well as the manuscript turn out to be developed, producing results that are unclear to interpret and do not follow a useful manuscript structure to achieve the goals set in both the title and the introduction. The comparison between the two tillage systems is completely absent in the results and, when present, is totally disconnected from the structure of the manuscript. The different hydrological behaviour of the two processing systems after long-term application was not considered. Probably, because (or it is the cause) the results obtained, in particular the r-values, are not very good.
Finally, many parts of the manuscript are purely speculative and make the reading very heavy.
Therefore, in the first instance I consider the subject matter to be not interesting to the readers of Agronomy since the tillage systems are only marginally included by the experimental work and the manuscript (same activity could be done without digging a long-term experiment), and I suggest the article be republished in another purely hydrological journal like Water-MDPI after, however, an appropriate revision of the manuscript to make it more streamlined and effective.
Best Regards
Author Response
REV 2
The manuscript agronomy-1971865, entitled “Investigating The Spatial Structure Of Soil Hydraulic Properties In A Long-Term Field Experiment Comparing Different Soil Tillage Strategies” submitted by Popolizio et al. reported and discussed the results of a field survey on two different tillage systems within a frame of a long-term experiment regarding soil where the soil hydrological properties were assessed by BEST method. Data retrieved from survey were then analyzed and space modelled.
In general the experimental in field and in lab seems to have been conducted appropriately with an adeguate application of BEST method. However, both the modelling part of the results as well as the manuscript turn out to be developed, producing results that are unclear to interpret and do not follow a useful manuscript structure to achieve the goals set in both the title and the introduction. The comparison between the two tillage systems is completely absent in the results and, when present, is totally disconnected from the structure of the manuscript. The different hydrological behaviour of the two processing systems after long-term application was not considered. Probably, because (or it is the cause) the results obtained, in particular the r-values, are not very good.
ANSW1: We thank the reviewer for the work accomplished and for the comments and suggestions.
The two objectives of our study, reported both in the abstract and in the Introduction section, were
“i) assessing the spatial structure of soil physical and hydraulic properties in a long-term field experiment where minimum tillage and no-tillage were compared; ii) defining a set of spatial indicators for gaining an integrated view of the studied system”. Therefore, in this study we did not focus on the comparison between the two soil management strategies (No-tillage, Minimum-tillage). This study represents a preliminary step of a next work where the comparison between the two soil management strategies will be carried out using LMM. In addition, the r-values mentioned by the reviewer have nothing to do with the comparison of the hydrological behaviour of the two soil management strategies. Anyway, the r-values, both referred to the correlation analysis of variables under study (Table 2) and to the cross-validation outcomes (Table 3), were appropriate and consistent with the study carried out as detailed in the Results and Discussion sections.
We understand that there were some unclear points in the manuscript and, therefore, we introduced some changes in the title and in some sentences within Introduction, Materials and Methods and Discussion sections to improve the clarity of the contents.
Finally, many parts of the manuscript are purely speculative and make the reading very heavy.
ANSW2: We thank the reviewer for the observations. We introduced some changes in the Discussion section to improve the clarity of the text.
Therefore, in the first instance I consider the subject matter to be not interesting to the readers of Agronomy since the tillage systems are only marginally included by the experimental work and the manuscript (same activity could be done without digging a long-term experiment), and I suggest the article be republished in another purely hydrological journal like Water-MDPI after, however, an appropriate revision of the manuscript to make it more streamlined and effective.
ANSW3: We slightly disagree with the reviewer’s standpoint, since the assessment of the spatial structure of the physical and hydraulic soil properties, besides being of great importance for incorporating the information of spatial residual correlation for the advanced ANOVA analysis (LMM), is crucial in the scope of precision agriculture. The mapping of soil properties can advantage the farmers in the optimizing the management of irrigation and fertilization. For these reasons, we believe that the treated topics are of interest for the audience of the journal “Agronomy”.
Reviewer 3 Report
Actually, this is one good paper related to the description of the spatial heterogeneity of soil physical properties plots' scale, which also is one of my main interesting points. Authors have give detail process that would help readers to follow. But considering the title of this manuscript, I did not find the necessary link between the title and results. I wonder if authors did not use this experiment, the similar results also can be found. Meanwhile, if authors can provide the soil sampling poinnts' location in map, which would be better for readers' understand for study design. A suggestion for authors, add one part to analysis the spatial variation derived from different soil tillage practices.
Author Response
Rev 3
Actually, this is one good paper related to the description of the spatial heterogeneity of soil physical properties plots' scale, which also is one of my main interesting points. Authors have give detail process that would help readers to follow. But considering the title of this manuscript, I did not find the necessary link between the title and results. I wonder if authors did not use this experiment, the similar results also can be found. Meanwhile, if authors can provide the soil sampling points' location in map, which would be better for readers' understand for study design. A suggestion for authors, add one part to analysis the spatial variation derived from different soil tillage practices.
ANSW1: We apologize with the reviewer for the misleading title that has been modified in the new manuscript version. As reported already, this work was specifically focused on the assessment of the spatial heterogeneity of soil physical and hydraulic properties. This study represents a preliminary step of a next work where the comparison between the two soil management strategies will be carried out using LMM.
Reviewer 4 Report
Dear authors,
I am so happy to see such detailed statistics in a research paper. But what I am really intertested is what the differences of soil hydraulic properties or soil structure characteristics are under mini-tillage and no-tillage managements. There is no related results in manuscript. The results do not match objectives proposed. From this point, I suggest this manuscript should be revised. The compared results by tillage strategies should be highlighted. At the same time, methodology section can be writen briefly.
Author Response
REV 4
Dear authors,
I am so happy to see such detailed statistics in a research paper. But what I am really interested is what the differences of soil hydraulic properties or soil structure characteristics are under mini-tillage and no-tillage managements. There is no related results in manuscript. The results do not match objectives proposed. From this point, I suggest this manuscript should be revised. The compared results by tillage strategies should be highlighted. At the same time, methodology section can be writen briefly.
ANSW1: We thank the reviewer for his/her gentle appreciations. Concerning the differences of soil hydraulic properties under different soil management, we have to underline that the declared objectives of the present work are the following:
“i) assessing the spatial structure of soil physical and hydraulic properties in a long-term field experiment where minimum tillage and no-tillage were compared; ii) defining a set of spatial indicators for gaining an integrated view of the studied system”. Therefore, in this study we did not focus on the comparison between the two soil management strategies (No-tillage, Minimum-tillage). This comparison will be the aim of a next work as also reported in the manuscript.
Finally, the Materials and Methods section has been shortened to improve the clarity of the text.
Round 2
Reviewer 2 Report
Manuscript Number: agronomy-1971865:
Rev-2, October 27th, 2022
Dear Authors, here I have listed my comments.
Manuscript agronomy-1971865, entitled “Investigating The Spatial Structure Of Soil Hydraulic Properties In A Long-Term Field Experiment Comparing Different Soil Tillage Strategies”
The manuscript has been improved only slightly, so I believe that the subject matter continues to be of no interest to readers of Agronomy, as tillage systems are only marginally included in the manuscript. It is difficult to clearly understand what impact the soil management practices (minimum tillage or no-tillage) had on the measured parameters. A huge amount of work was certainly done but no particular reference was made to the impact of soil management practices as is also evident from the presentation of the results in the tables or figures.
Regards
Author Response
REV 2
Manuscript agronomy-1971865, entitled “Investigating The Spatial Structure Of Soil Hydraulic Properties In A Long-Term Field Experiment Comparing Different Soil Tillage Strategies”
The manuscript has been improved only slightly, so I believe that the subject matter continues to be of no interest to readers of Agronomy, as tillage systems are only marginally included in the manuscript. It is difficult to clearly understand what impact the soil management practices (minimum tillage or no-tillage) had on the measured parameters. A huge amount of work was certainly done but no particular reference was made to the impact of soil management practices as is also evident from the presentation of the results in the tables or figures.
Regards
ANSW1: We would like to underline to the Reviewer, that references to the comparison of the two soil management strategies were dropped from the manuscript to avoid misinterpretations, since this was not the aim of the present study. Moreover, we highlight that the manuscript is destined to the journal section focused on Precision and Digital Agriculture and reported methods are strictly tied to that field; for instance, the mapping of soil properties can be useful also for homogeneous areas delineation that can advantage the farmers in the optimizing the management of agronomic techniques. Therefore, in our opinion, the present contribution appears to be pertinent with the scope of the journal “Agronomy”.
Reviewer 4 Report
All my questioned comments and suggestions are all solved out in the revised manuscript. Now the objectives and research results are highly matched. The method applied in this manuscipt is feasible and available for soil quality assessment.
Author Response
REV 4
All my questioned comments and suggestions are all solved out in the revised manuscript. Now the objectives and research results are highly matched. The method applied in this manuscipt is feasible and available for soil quality assessment.
ANSW1: We thank the reviewer for his/her gentle appreciations and for understanding our efforts in eliminating the sources of misinterpretation.
