The Use of Compost from Post-Consumer Wood Waste Containing Microbiological Inoculums on Growth and Flowering of Chrysanthemum (Chrysanthemum × grandiflorum Ramat./Kitam.)
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
General comment:
The paper provides valuable results for the flower growing and/or wood waste processing industry. As of now, however, there is no real scientific benefit, because no discussion of the underlying processes is provided and results are merely reported without any real attempt of explanation. Furthermore, some more information in the Material&Methods-Section needs to be provided.
Abstract
You write "Compost without any additional microorganisms and microelements was control for experiment.", but I think that peat without compost was really your control? Like in e.g. in table 3.
Introduction
The introduction needs improvement. It is not yet clear why you had to perform the study. You write yourself that wood wastes can be composted successfully and that they have "physical properties (colour, smell, bulk density) similar to those of horticultural substrates produced using peat and may be used as its substitute". If that is already known than why investigate it again? The same can be said about inoculants. You write "The use of microbial additives during composting is considered highly efficient..." - so why investigate this topic again?
Also, there is no connection between the first part of the introduction and the second part about inoculants, beginning at line 91. It just starts suddenly with "The inoculation does not always show a good performance...", but until than inoculants were not really mentioned or properly explained.
Materials & Methods
How long was the composting process and what were the temperatures during the process?
Table 1: What you call "control" in table 1 is called "KK" later? If so, please refer to it as KK here as well. If not, than please make it more clear what is what.
Table 3 & 5: Why sometimes decimal places and sometimes not? Also, what unit is Salinity - g NaCl per what?
Line 170: "where one plant was one pot with 5 plants. " I think you mean "where one replication was one pot..."?
Did you count number of flowers/buds once (when?) or multiple times? It is a parameter that changes over times, right? So ist would be necessary to know when and how you counted.
Regarding SPAD: You write "For each plant, the index of leaves greenness SPAD measurement was made on 3 leaves. The mean sample consisted of 45 leaves per one treatment." But before, you write that each pot has 5 plants and each treatment has 16 replications. So how do you geht 45 leaves per treatment? 3 leaves * 5 plants * 16 replications = 240, no?
Also, please specify on which leave you measured SPAD, because greenness may vary between younger and older leaves.
Please give some information about the statistical analysis your performed.
Results & Discussion
Table 6: Please provide some information in the table head about what the letters mean and what kind of statistic is behind the data. Furthermore, is the weight per plant or per pot (5 plants)?
Line 190/191: Em and Em+K are different from KK as well ("b" vs. "a").
Figure 1: There should be some marking on the Y-axis. "Number per plant" or something.
Line 203-205: You talk about statistical differences, but figure 1 does not include statistical information.
General comment about discussion: You compare your results to other studies, but you provide very little explanation for your findings. E.g. why are plants grown in compost less green?
Conclusions
Line 279: "Plants grown in substrates with the 25% addition of AL and A+K composts were an exception." In what way? What does a sentence like this do for the reader? It is not informative in any way like this.
Line 282/283: The last sentence is not a conclusion gained from your study, just a general statement. It does not belong here.
Author Response
Dear Reviewer,
please see the attachment.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.docx
Reviewer 2 Report
Coments in atachment
Comments for author File: 
Comments.pdf
Author Response
Dear Reviewer,
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
The paper has been improved. However, the new text parts require editing of English language and style before the paper can be published. The new parts are sometimes hard to understand in their current form.
Please do not use "/" in units, but -1 or similar.
Figure 2 appears twice, at least in my PDF-version.
Reviewer 2 Report
An interesting and relevant study has been published. I think the authors need to go deeper into the technological issues of compost as they are a weak point in the publication. I hope that the authors will continue their research on this topic and will be able to answer questions about the speed and conditions and quality of wood waste decomposition.
