Review Reports - Energy Sorghum Removal of Soil Cadmium in Chinese Subtropical Farmland: Effects of Variety and Cropping System

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

In general, the article needs a few improvements in its written presentation. The manuscript is quiet introduced and written. The results are quite interesting. Aspects related to English grammar and punctuation should be reviewed. There are some critical issues to check, and the changes were highlighted in the article by yellow color. Some suggestions about how the manuscript might be improved are listed below, but these are by no means a comprehensive editing of the manuscript.

Specific Comments to Author:

- Critically check the whole text as there are any typographical errors

- Revise all the highlighted words in the whole text.

- Revise the English grammar and punctuation in the whole text.

- All units in the article should be arranged in SI units.

- Please follow the highlighted comments in the attached file.

Abstract

- Please re-check the highlighted abbreviations which have been mentioned in the whole manuscript. Please elaborate them at least once at its first place in the abstract and other sections of manuscript.

Introduction section

-Weak introduction, it needs some arrangements and add some recent studies.

- Material and methods section

- is nicely presented and well described but there are some methodologies that must be clarified.

Results Section

- Some Figure captions needed some clarifications.

Discussion section

- the discussion section is very poor and needs more explanations and clarifications. Please Rewrite this section again. It is difficult to go through it.

Conclusions

- Please follow the highlighted comments in the attached file.

Supplementary materials

- Please follow the highlighted comments in the attached file.

-Move the Pearson correlation from the supplementary data to the manuscript.

-Add the abbreviations in the footnote and modify the title in Table 1.

-Add a and b on the Figure and clarify the signification letters on the S2a.

- Grain in yellow color is not found in the Figure S2.

- Mention the letters indication in the figure S3 caption

References

- Add some recent references in introduction and discussion sections as the references number is very low.

-Make sure that the references citation style is according to Journal guidelines

- Please follow the highlighted comments in the attached file.

Aspects related to English grammar and punctuation should be reviewed.

Author Response

Responses to Reviewers(Q refers to question and R to reply)

Thank you very much for the review of our manuscript agronomy-2605319. The comments were highly insightful and enabled us to greatly improve the quality of our manuscript. We have made revisions to the sentences in both the introduction and discussion sections, rectified any errors, and refined the language. We have provided our point-by-point responses to the comments.

Q1: Please follow the highlighted comments in the article. Specific issues include typographical errors, words, English grammar and punctuation and all units.

R1: All locations marked with yellow color have been revised in accordance with the correct expressions. And we also double-checked the whole article and revised all similar problems. The specific revisions have been highlighted in red in the article.

Q2: Please re-check the highlighted abbreviations which have been mentioned in the whole manuscript. Please elaborate them at least once at its first place in the abstract and other sections of manuscript.

R2: As your suggestion, we have given a detailed description and explanation where the abbreviation is mentioned for the first time, such as in the Abstract, the Introduction and the Materials and Methods. All revisions have been highlighted in red in the article.

Q3: Weak introduction, it needs some arrangements and add some recent studies.

R3: Thanks for your suggestion. We have made minor revisions to the first two paragraphs and major revisions to the last two paragraphs of the Introduction. Firstly, the typographical errors, words and grammatical errors have been revised. Secondly, several new literatures have been added to expand the research status of sorghum copping system. Third, some of the statements were rearranged and some content was removed. The specific revisions have been highlighted in red in the article.

Q4: there are some methodologies that must be clarified.

R4: We have clarified the methods Sample collection and analysis. Additionally, we have added some other necessary information, such as sampling time, trial treatment duplication, and full names and abbreviations of some indicators. All revisions have been highlighted in red in the article.

Q5: Some Figure captions needed some clarifications.

R5: We have rewritten and revised all the figure captions in the article as your suggestion.

Q6: The discussion section is very poor and needs more explanations and clarifications. Please Rewrite this section again. It is difficult to go through it.

R6: We have revised the discussion sections 4.1 and 4.3, with all modifications highlighted in red in the article. Specifically, we have incorporated recent research citations to bolster our findings, thereby enhancing their credibility. Additionally, we have rephrased certain sentences to improve the quality of the discussion. In fact, we would like to explain that the mention of the figure in the discussion aimed to point to the provenance of the research results that are the focus of our discussion.

Q7: there are some problems in Conclusion, please follow the highlighted comments in the attached file.

R7: We have deleted the sentence of ‘due to genetic regulation of varieties’ and changed ‘was’ to ‘were’ in conclusion.

Q8: Move the Pearson correlation from the supplementary data to the manuscript. Add the abbreviations in the footnote and modify the title in Table 1. Add a and b on the Figure and clarify the signification letters on the S2a. Grain in yellow color is not found in the Figure S2. Mention the letters indication in the figure S3 caption.

R8: Revision has been taken as suggestions. We have moved the Pearson correlation to the manuscript as Figure 4. The title of Table S1 have been modified to ‘Variation of agronomic characteristics and Cd removal in sorghums’ and footnote have been added as ‘Note: DW, dry matter weight, 103kg ha^-1. Ccd, Cd concentration in shoot, mg kg^-1, Rcd, removal of Cd, g ha^-1. BS, biomass sorghum. SS, sweet sorghum. CV, coefficient of variation’. We have followed the suggestion and recreated Figure S2, while also revising the captions for both Figure S2 and S3.

Q9: Add some recent references in introduction and discussion sections as the references number is very low. Make sure that the references citation style is according to Journal guidelines. Please follow the highlighted comments in the attached file.

R9: We have added nine recent references in introduction and discussion sections, and modified the style of all reference’s citation according to Journal guidelines. All revisions have been highlighted in red in the article.

Q10: English grammar and punctuation should be reviewed.

R10：The language has been further polished across the manuscript.

Q11: Explanation of the parameters of the structural equation model (SEM) in the title of Figure 5.

R11: The structural equation model parameters (SEM) in the title of Figure 5 represent whether the model was successfully constructed. The most important ones are the P value and Root-mean-square error of approximation (RMSEA,) with P value greater than 0.05 and RMESA less than 0.05, which proves the success of the equation construction. The other parameters are incidental results and are not used to explain the equation model. We hope you are satisfied with our explanation.

Reviewer 2 Report

The review concerned an article on the removal of the heavy metal cadmium.

The summary sufficiently characterizes the topic and scope of the article and presents the purpose of the work.

The introduction fully presents the literature related to the topic of the work.

Chapter 2 material and methods.

Table 1 shows the basic properties of soil... - if these are results previously obtained by the authors, a literature reference should be added to the table. If these are research results obtained by the authors while carrying out this work, please move the table to the research results section.

Chapter 3 results

When describing test results and when abbreviations are used, please explain them in brackets. Explanations of the abbreviations are provided below the figures and this makes it much more difficult to understand the interpretation of the test results.

Additionally, please correct the notation of units throughout the article - check the subscripts and superscripts, it is not unified.

Then next to figure 1 there are 3 figures. the description in the text is given a, b, c. maybe it is better to add a, b, c under each figure plus in the text. Please correct this throughout the research results chapter.

Chapter discussion.

Please expand this chapter by adding additional literary works. Taking into account the topic and scope of work, this chapter can be expanded.

I recommend printing it after making minor corrections.

Author Response

Responses to Reviewers(Q refers to question and R to reply)

Q1: Table 1 shows the basic properties of soil... - if these are results previously obtained by the authors, a literature reference should be added to the table. If these are research results obtained by the authors while carrying out this work, please move the table to the research results section.

R1: Following your suggestion, we have moved Tale 1 to Result 3.1 section and the original 3.1section has moved in order to the 3.2 section, and so on. 3.1 section as follow:

3.1. Basic properties of the soils

The two soils used in this study were all contaminated with Cd due to the long-term sewage irrigation in the past decades (Table 1). The total Cd concentration in the two soils was 1.22 mg kg^-1 and 039 mg kg^-1, respectively, which clearly exceeded the limit by the National Soil Environmental Quality Standard of China (MEEPRC, 2018). The available Cd concentration in the two soils was 0.60 mg kg^-1 and 0.11 mg kg^-1, presenting a high Cd availability in the soil.

Soil pH were 5.6 and 6.5 for the two soils, while the cation exchange capacity (CEC) were 6.37cmol⁺ kg^-1 and 15.90 cmol⁺ kg^-1, respectively. The total nitrogen (N) concentration in the two soils was 2.12 g kg^-1 and 1.88 g kg^-1, while available nitrogen concentration was 178mg kg^-1 and 162 mg kg^-1. The organic matter (OM) in the two soils was 18.72 g kg^-1 and 36.4 g kg^-1, respectively.

Table 1. The basic properties of the soil in two experimental fields.

County

SOM

(g kg^-1)

CEC

cmol⁺kg^-1

Total Cd (mg kg^-1)

Available

Cd (mg kg^-1)

Total N

(g kg⁻¹)

Available N (mg kg⁻¹)

Changsha

5.6

18.72

6.37

1.22

0.60

2.12

178

Liling

6.5

36.4

15.9

0.39

0.11

1.88

162

Note：SOM, soil organic matter. CEC, cation exchange capacity. Total Cd, Total amount of cadmium in soil. Available Cd, DTPA extractable Cd in soil. Total N, total nitrogen content in soil. Available N, soil alkali-hydrolyzable nitrogen.

Q2: When describing test results and when abbreviations are used, please explain them in brackets. Explanations of the abbreviations are provided below the figures and this makes it much more difficult to understand the interpretation of the test results.

R2: Thanks for your suggestion. We have given a uniform explanation of the full names and abbreviations of the research indicators in Section 2.4 of the Materials Method, and have not shown them again in the Results and Discussion section, so as to avoid redundancy in the description. We hope you are satisfied with our explanation.

Q3: Pease correct the notation of units throughout the article - check the subscripts and superscripts, it is not unified.

R3: According to your suggestion, we have carefully checked the whole article and revised the wrong superscript and subscript uniformly. All revisions have been marked in red in the article.

Q4: Then next to figure 1 there are 3 figures. The description in the text is given a, b, c. maybe it is better to add a, b, c under each figure plus in the text. Please correct this throughout the research results chapter.

R4: We have rewritten and revised all the Figure captions in the article as your suggestion. All revisions have been marked in red in the article.

Q5: Please expand this chapter by adding additional literary works. Considering the topic and scope of work, this chapter can be expanded.

R5: Thanks for your suggestion. On the basis of the existing discussion, we added some related literature to support our results, and appropriately expanded the Discussion chapter within the topic and research scope of the article. All revisions have been marked in red in the article. We hope you are satisfied with our revision.

Reviewer 3 Report

1. Clearly indicate the number of replicates conducted on two soils for different sorghum species and cultivars, including field and laboratory replicates.

2. Table 1 (line 106) shows the amounts of total Cd and available Cd, g/kg; such concentrations cannot exist, especially since cadmium concentrations below are indicated in mg/kg (line 291)

3. Line 156 (2) TF=C/Croot, but in line 158 equation (2): Cshoot

4. Line 166 incorrectly spelled ORINGIN instead of ORIGIN.

5. Give the generally accepted designation pH (in Table 1 pH is indicated, further in the text and in the appendix pH is an unclear parameter)

6. The text as a whole (especially the description of the results) is very hard to read.

Author Response

Responses to Reviewers(Q refers to question and R to reply)

Q1. Clearly indicate the number of replicates conducted on two soils for different sorghum species and cultivars, including field and laboratory replicates.

R1: Revised has been taken as your suggested. We have added independent replications of test treatments to sections 2.2 and 2.3 of the Materials and Methods. The specific revisions have been highlighted in red in the article.

Q2. Table 1 (line 106) shows the amounts of total Cd and available Cd, g/kg; such concentrations cannot exist, especially since cadmium concentrations below are indicated in mg/kg (line 291)

R2: Thank you for your question. After verification, we have revised g kg^-1 to mg kg^-1, and checked all the units of indicators in the article.

Q3. Line 156 (2) TF=C/Croot, but in line 158 equation (2): Cshoot

R3: After verification, we have revised Cshoot to Croot. The specific revisions have been highlighted in red in the article.

Q4. Line 166 incorrectly spelled ORINGIN instead of ORIGIN.

R4: Thank you for your question. After verification, we have revised ORINGIN to ORIGIN.

Q5. Give the generally accepted designation pH (in Table 1 pH is indicated, further in the text and in the appendix pH is an unclear parameter)

R5: We apologize for the confusion caused by the writing level and expression. Table 1 is indeed the pH value of soil, and the PH used in the article is an abbreviation of Plant Height, which has no direct relationship with soil pH value.

Q6. The text as a whole (especially the description of the results) is very hard to read.

R6: We apologize for the confusion caused by the illegible text and redundant expression in the article. We have made appropriate adjustments to enhance the clarity of our Results section. Firstly, we eliminated extraneous expressions and words that were not pertinent to this study. Secondly, we have revised certain ambiguous sentences to ensure smoother readability and facilitate better comprehension. All revisions have been marked in red in the article. We hope you are satisfied with our revision.