Mixed Ration Silage Containing Tanzania Grass and Babassu By-Products for Dairy Cows
, Henrique Parente 1, Michelle Parente 2, Edson Santos 3, Anny Graycy Lima 1, Ricardo Pinho 4, Juliana Oliveira 3, Francisco Naysson Santos 1, Francisca Claudia Sousa 1, Renata Costa 1, Carlos Rodolfo Castro 1 and João Ricardo Dórea 5Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report (Previous Reviewer 1)
Review comments on “Mixed ration silage containing Tanzania grass and babassu byproducts for dairy cows” by Daniele de Jesus Ferreira et al.
This paper presents a study of fermentative profile, losses, chemical composition, and in vitro dry matter digestibility of mixed ration silages combining babassu byproducts as a feed alternative for dairy cows.
After resubmitting, the article can be accepted
Reviewer 2 Report (Previous Reviewer 2)
The current ms can be accepted by journal. Authors revised their ms very well.
Reviewer 3 Report (Previous Reviewer 3)
The present form of this manuscript can be accepted.
This manuscript is a resubmission of an earlier submission. The following is a list of the peer review reports and author responses from that submission.
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Review comments on “Mixed ration silage containing Tanzania grass and babassu byproducts for dairy cows” by Daniele de Jesus Ferreira et al.
This paper presents a study of fermentative profile, losses, chemical composition, and in vitro dry matter digestibility of mixed ration silages combining babassu byproducts as a feed alternative for dairy cows.
My main general comments are as below:
- This manuscript cited too many not highly relevant references to the reported study, but on the other side not enough highly relevant references on the particular study the author(s) presented. Please correct this issue by removing less relevant references but adding a few (more) highly agricultural applications relevant references, to keep the total number of references around 35.
- The formula (4) should have subscripts for ‘i’, ’k’ and an explanation of the notation.
Author Response
"Please see the attachment."
Author Response File: 
Author Response.docx
Reviewer 2 Report
This study aimed to evaluate the fermentative profile, losses, chemical composition, and in vitro dry matter digestibility of mixed ration silages combining babassu byproducts as a feed alternative for dairy cows. It is a very interesting study, but there are some minor mistakes in the content. Please recheck it and revise them. Overall, I would give minor revision for this manuscript before acceptance.
English writing needs to be improved by a native English speaker.
L20-23 Results in Abstract need to be rewrite.
L40, L43, L51 grammar mistakes.
Data in Table 1 and 2 needs to add the SD value.
L251, L272, L274, L289, L312, grammar mistakes.
L286 why use LA:FP rather than LA:AA?
L329-332 The description about aerobic stability is too brief, thus I suggest authors read and refer to one paper named “Nutritional evaluation of wet brewers’ grains as substitute for common vetch in ensiled total mixed ration”.
Author Response
"Please see the attachment."
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Reviewer 3 Report
Summary
The author studied the utilization of Tanzania grass and babassu byproducts in mixed ration silages, and did a lot of work. However, the work needed a deep review, and many sentences needed correct linguistic revision.
General comments
Q1, the manuscript may be more appropriate for a local journal than for Agronomy, and will not appeal to readers because grass species are not representative enough.
Q2, the study has been performed not well with detailed methodology and updated review of the literature.
Q3, the introduction section should be much expanded and improved to highlight the significance of the study.
Q4, the English language needs to be corrected thoroughly.
Introduction
Line 15, ‘in vitro’ should be italicized, please check the full text.
Line 23, aerobic stability (AS)? Examine all of the abbreviated names to see whether they are often used
Line 24, N-NH3 or NH3-N? Where is the full name of N-NH3?
Line 42-46, This sentence is confusing, please reword it.
Line 52, Please check if the ‘bromatological’ is spelled correctly.
Line 54, total mixed silage or total ration silage? Please use the name uniformly
Materials and Methods
-Please supplement the data on the chemical composition of Tanzania-68 grass.
-Please provide a table to visually describe the composition ratio of each treatment.
Table 1, Soluble carbohydrate is an important factor to affect the fermentation quality of silages, why did you determine the total carbohydrates of babassu byproducts instead of soluble carbohydrates?
-During aerobic exposure, what is the capacity of experimental PVC silos?
Results
-P should be italicized, please check the full text.
Line 191, N-NH3? Examine the abbreviated names to see whether it is often used
Line 193, What does CHOS stand for?
Line 194, P<0,331 should be P<0.331
-Please check the data on water-soluble carbohydrates in Table 2 and Table 3. Why the water-soluble carbohydrates content of silage before ensiling was lower than that of silage after ensiling? It's unreasonable.
Line 203, Why is propionic acid not included in FP?
Line 203-204, delete – percentage of lactic acid as end product of fermentation
Line 211-212, It is in contradiction with the data in table 3.
Line 213-216, Reword these sentences, organic acids included lactic acid, acetic acid, propionic acid and butyric acid, thus these sentences were contradictory.
Line 218, ‘lowest’ should be ‘lower’.
Line 226-227, this sentence is in contradiction with the data in table 4, rewrite it.
Line 243, ‘between’ should be ‘among’
Discussion
-Please do not focus on the discussion of the control.
Line 291, Gases should be Gas
Line 292, provides should be provided
Line 295, ‘between’ should be ‘among’.
Line 300, ‘indicates’ should be ‘indicated’.
Line 300-301, reword this sentence
Line 309, delete ‘is’
Line 328, delete aerobic
Line 329, reports should be reported
Line 334-337, There was no data on microbial counts, how did you determine that TRS reduced the microbial growth?
- The discussion lacked logic, and more discussion of the biological mechanisms of treatments is necessary.
References
- The format of the references should be in the English language, please check all references.
Line 400, 414-417, These references are too old, please update them.
Author Response
"Please see the attachment."
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Round 2
Reviewer 3 Report
Comments for agronmony-1961865:
1. About the response "Sorry for disagreeing with your idea of narrowing the scope of publication. Although this plant is native to Brazil, this does not mean that manuscript about this product can is restricted to local publications. With globalization nothing prevents this plant from being stimulated and cultivated in other regions of the planet as a similar biome." presented by the author, the comment is as follows:
Q1, please supply the related reference about Tanzania grass and babassu to confirm that other countries or regions grow or cultivate this plant besides Brazil. If not, how to conclude the above response?
Q2, Globalization is fine, but every country is cautious about alien plants. The sensitive issue is whether the planting of this plant worldwide will involve the invasion of species.
That's why the reviewer stated that the manuscript may be more appropriate for a local journal.
2. About the response "If you find it necessary, please specify which methodologies you would like us to detail. It will be a pleasure to meet your demand to make our manuscript even better.",
please provide the detailed methodology for the determination of pH, ammonia-N, organic acids, total carbohydrates and total digestible nutrients. So many methods are not clearly written, why did the author ignore it?
3. About the response "We have disagreed. The key points regarding the problems were raised and seeking to justify the hypothesis that the use of total ration silages could solve this problem. In addition to this, we also raised the possibility of using babassu by-products to be even more efficient in the adsorption of the high humidity of the grass that hinder the fermentative profile of the silage as an alternative way to solve the afore mentioned problem. In your opinion, what else do we need to add to meet your request?",
What does the author mean? The Introduction section is flawless?
For example, Tanzania grass and babassu are new to readers, whether the plant taxonomic information and the morphological, physiological and biochemical characteristics of these plants should be added?
4. The reviewer is confused about the research design. If the authors are focus on the topic of TMR silage, how to explain the control (TGS) treatment? It makes no sense to compare Tanzania grass silage and TMR silage. Obviously, they are different type of silage. Moreover, the workload of this study is not acceptable. Some basic but important indicators were missing, such as microbial data. Since the study aimed to evaluate the effect of by-product replacement, in vitro trial is required at least.
The reviewer regretted the unsatisfactory revisions and therefore rejected publication of this manuscript in Agronomy.
