Review Reports

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Minor revisions/suggestions for incorporation please.

Introduction:

?? Page-2, Line-77: Kindly check the abbreviations must be defined completely at first mention "...soil PLFA content was affected, and long-term fertilizer..." Here PLFA stands for??

?? Page-2, Line-87 to 90: Please revise the mentioned lines to build and cause-effect the hypothesis in an effective way!! 

?? Page-4, Line-134: Kindly check the sentence "Soil pH and EC were measured in 1: (w/v) soil-water solution..." the ratio is written correctly here!!

Materials and Methods:

?? The materials and methods section is very brief. Please add details for analytical methodologies to make it reproducible.

?? Quality assurance of data is mandatory!!! How many batch, repeats, chemical grade and for used instruments manufacturers’ user manual and instructions were strictly followed or not!!!

Results:

?? Please improve the figures/graphs with appropriaite legends. Also mention number of replicates in a mean i.e, n = ?? in each figure legend.

Rest of sections are OK and upto the mark.

Author Response

Response to Reviewer 1 Comments

     Thank you for your review and reply to the paper agronomy-2056932, the article has been greatly improved through the modification of the questions. The reviewer was generally satisfied with the article and mainly concerned about the article’s expression, materials and methods, and the number of data duplicates, and we have made the corresponding modifications. Details are as follows:

Point 1: Page-2, Line-77: Kindly check the abbreviations must be defined completely at first mention "...soil PLFA content was affected, and long-term fertilizer..." Here PLFA stands for??

Response 1: Accept the reviewer's suggestions. The full name of phosphor lipid fatty acid (PLFA) has been marked. For details, please see the revised version Page-2 and Line-88.

Point 2:  Page-2, Line-87 to 90: Please revise the mentioned lines to build and cause-effect the hypothesis in an effective way!! 

Response 2: Accept the reviewer's suggestions. We made the change “We hypothesized that:1) the addition of biochar would have a good improvement effect on soil structure and soil microorganisms; 2) the addition of nitrification inhibitor would have a positive effect on soil nitrogen conversion and fertilizer utilization in saline-alkali soil; 3) the addition of both would have a double effect on the improvement of saline-alkali soil and nitrogen fertilizer utilization. The conceptual model diagram of this paper is shown below (Figure 1)”. For details, please see the revised version Page-3 and Line-101-106.

Point 3:  Page-4, Line-134: Kindly check the sentence "Soil pH and EC were measured in 1: (w/v) soil-water solution..." the ratio is written correctly here!!

Response 3: Accept the reviewer's suggestions. The modified part is “Soil pH and EC were measured in 1: 5(w/v) soil-water solution with a conductivity meter (DDS-307A, LEICI, China) and pH meter (PHS-25, LEICI, China) after shaking for 1 h in an end-over-end shaker.” And the relevant reference [24] was added. For details, please see the revised version Page-4, Line-155-157.

Point 4: The materials and methods section is very brief. Please add details for analytical methodologies to make it reproducible.

Response 4: Accept the reviewer's suggestions. In the Materials and methods part, some methods of index measurement especially soil nitrogen and aggregates, and drawing methods were added. See Modified version for details in part 2. Materials and Methods in page 3-5.

Point 5:  Quality assurance of data is mandatory!!! How many batch, repeats, chemical grade and for used instruments manufacturers’ user manual and instructions were strictly followed or not!!!

Response 5: Thanks for your suggestion. Information such as data duplicates, instrument supplier and chemical grades has been added and the instrument manufacturer's user manual and instructions are strictly followed. See Modified version for details in part 2. Materials and Methods in page 3-5 and the part below the graph and the table.

Point 6:  Please improve the figures/graphs with appropriate legends. Also mention number of replicates in a mean i.e, n = ?? in each figure legend.

Response 6: Thanks for your suggestion. The chart has been adjusted to the appropriate size for the length of the article and the number of repetitions has been added to the legend.

Thanks again for your valuable comments on the article!

 

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments for Author,

In this paper, the authors investigated Biochar and Nitrification Inhibitor (Dicyandiamide) combination had a double-win effect on saline-alkali soil improvement and Soybean production in the Yellow River Delta, China. Although the authors conducted many experiments, but the whole paper is still needed to improve from the standard of Agronomy Journal thus minor revision is required for further consideration.

1. Please enhance the readability of the whole paper by simplifying the sentences.

 2. The novelty of this work is strong enough, the authors should point it out clearly within the introduction part. In addition to this, the introduction is needed to support with latest refs, More references could be used to support with these the authors' views regarding biochar and microorganism. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envpol.2022.120064, https://doi.org/10.1007/s11270-022-05807-2, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-0716-1724-3_50, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-6664-4_13 

3. Please extend statistical analyses if possible. 

4. I think, the results section is enough. But, the discussion section might be improved and supported with the latest study about biochar application, to improve, please support with these latest refs or other international work. 

5. Conclusion remarks could be improved. 

Best Regards

 

 

 

Author Response

Response to Reviewer 2 Comments

    Thank you for your review and reply to the paper agronomy-2056932, the article has been greatly improved through the modification of the questions. The reviewer was generally satisfied with the article, focusing on adding the latest references, statistical analysis methods and language modification. The above issues have been revised, as shown in the following details:

Point 1: Please enhance the readability of the whole paper by simplifying the sentences.

Response 1: Thanks for your suggestion. We had read through the whole text and simplify the sentences to enhance the readability of the whole article, and we invited native English speaker Timothy A. Doane to revise the language.          

Point 2: The novelty of this work is strong enough, the authors should point it out clearly within the introduction part. In addition to this, the introduction is needed to support with latest refs, More references could be used to support with these the authors' views regarding biochar and microorganism.

Response 2: Thanks for your suggestion. Emphasis has been placed on the novelty of the article in the introduction, and recommended references have been added. See Revised Version of Introduction and References 20,21,26,29,53 for details.

Point 3: Please extend statistical analyses if possible.

Response 3: Thanks for your suggestion. Statistical analysis methods are further supplemented. Please refer to the revised draft 2.7 Calculations and statistical analysis for details.

Point 4: Reviewer think, the results section is enough. But, the discussion section might be improved and supported with the latest study about biochar application, to improve, please support with these latest refs or other international work.

Response 4: Thanks for your suggestion. According to the articles recommended by the reviewers, the latest biochar literature has been added to the discussion section. See Revised References 26,29,53 for details, which are the references recommended by reviewers for the application of biochar.

Point 5: Conclusion remarks could be improved.

Response 5: Thanks for your suggestion. The closing has been improved. See the revised draft of 5. Conclusion part for details.

Thanks again for your valuable comments on the article!

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf