Effects of Threshing Devices, Maize Varieties and Moisture Content of Grains on the Percentage of Maize Grains Broken in Harvesting
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
The manuscript entitled " Effects of threshing devices, maize varieties and moisture contest of grains on the percentage of maize grains broken in harvesting " need Major Revision and has to address the below concerns:
· It is important to know the age of the maize plant at harvest and numbers days to 50% silking.
· The author did not provide any solution to reduce the percentage of maize grains broken on the part of agricultural engineering
· It is clear that the percentage of grains broken was low in the DMYN1 cultivar, and this is due to the work of the plant breeder.
· Mention the statistical software and analytical methods in Materials and Methods
· One way ANOVA is not suitable for your data analysis.
· The authors should add statistical analysis and Duncan letters ( as, a, b ,c, etc.) to the mean values in Tables 3, 5 ,6 , 8 .
· Line 62: replace Petkevichiusa, Shpokasa and Kutzbachb [17] to Petkevichiusa et al. [17]
· Line 91: delete Threshing devices
· Lines 92 to 103: Remove this section to Introduction after line 83.
· Lines 104 to 112 and Table 1: Remove this section to Materials and Methods after line 138.
· Line 131 : Table 2 (replace mm to cm as well as their values )
· Line 139: Replace Figure 2 with clear photographs of the harvesters
· Line 201: Replace the one-way ANOVA to the two-way ANOVA and perform a statistical analysis of your data again to examine the interaction between threshing devices and working speeds and rewrite this section .
· Lines 239 – 243 : Remove this section to Materials and Methods
· Line 309: Discussion : rewrite this section with recent references
· Line 338: Conclusions : it is too long. Hence, needs revision
· Line 375: References : rewrite this section as Journal format and add recent references (all references before 2018).
Analysis of Variance Table for POGB from Data in Table 3
Source DF SS MS F P
rep 2 0.1739 0.08694
speed 2 19.0339 9.51694 111.80 0.0000
threshing 3 2.3942 0.79806 9.37 0.0003
speed*threshing 6 7.7150 1.28583 15.11 0.0000
Error 22 1.8728 0.08513
Total 35
Note: SS are marginal (type III) sums of squares
Grand Mean 6.9472 CV 4.20
LSD All-Pairwise Comparisons Test of POGB for speed
speed Mean Homogeneous Groups
3 7.9083 A
2 6.7833 B
1 6.1500 C
Alpha 0.05 Standard Error for Comparison 0.1191
Critical T Value 2.074 Critical Value for Comparison 0.2470
Error term used: rep*speed*threshing, 22 DF
All 3 means are significantly different from one another.
LSD All-Pairwise Comparisons Test of POGB for threshing
threshing Mean Homogeneous Groups
AFN 7.2667 A
AFRBBS 7.1333 A
TAF 6.7222 B
AFRBSS 6.6667 B
Alpha 0.05 Standard Error for Comparison 0.1375
Critical T Value 2.074 Critical Value for Comparison 0.2852
Error term used: rep*speed*threshing, 22 DF
There are 2 groups (A and B) in which the means
are not significantly different from one another.
LSD All-Pairwise Comparisons Test of POGB for speed*threshing
speed threshing Mean Homogeneous Groups
3 TAF 8.6000 A
3 AFN 8.4333 A
3 AFRBBS 7.4667 B
3 AFRBSS 7.1333 BC
2 AFN 7.1000 BC
2 AFRBBS 6.9667 C
1 AFRBBS 6.9667 C
2 AFRBSS 6.9333 C
1 AFN 6.2667 D
2 TAF 6.1333 D
1 AFRBSS 5.9333 D
1 TAF 5.4333 E
Alpha 0.05 Standard Error for Comparison 0.2382
Critical T Value 2.074 Critical Value for Comparison 0.4940
Error term used: rep*speed*threshing, 22 DF
There are 5 groups (A, B, etc.) in which the means
are not significantly different from one another.
Tukey HSD All-Pairwise Comparisons Test of POGB for speed
speed Mean Homogeneous Groups
3 7.9083 A
2 6.7833 B
1 6.1500 C
Alpha 0.05 Standard Error for Comparison 0.1191
Critical Q Value 3.554 Critical Value for Comparison 0.2993
Error term used: rep*speed*threshing, 22 DF
All 3 means are significantly different from one another.
Tukey HSD All-Pairwise Comparisons Test of POGB for threshing
threshing Mean Homogeneous Groups
AFN 7.2667 A
AFRBBS 7.1333 A
TAF 6.7222 B
AFRBSS 6.6667 B
Alpha 0.05 Standard Error for Comparison 0.1375
Critical Q Value 3.928 Critical Value for Comparison 0.3820
Error term used: rep*speed*threshing, 22 DF
There are 2 groups (A and B) in which the means
are not significantly different from one another.
Tukey HSD All-Pairwise Comparisons Test of POGB for speed*threshing
speed threshing Mean Homogeneous Groups
3 TAF 8.6000 A
3 AFN 8.4333 A
3 AFRBBS 7.4667 B
3 AFRBSS 7.1333 B
2 AFN 7.1000 BC
2 AFRBBS 6.9667 BCD
1 AFRBBS 6.9667 BCD
2 AFRBSS 6.9333 BCD
1 AFN 6.2667 CDE
2 TAF 6.1333 DE
1 AFRBSS 5.9333 E
1 TAF 5.4333 E
Alpha 0.05 Standard Error for Comparison 0.2382
Critical Q Value 5.142 Critical Value for Comparison 0.8663
Error term used: rep*speed*threshing, 22 DF
There are 5 groups (A, B, etc.) in which the means
are not significantly different from one another.
Comments for author File: 
Comments.pdf
Minor editing of English language required
Author Response
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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
This research is systematic and thoroughly analyzed effects of threshing devices, maize varieties and moisture contest of grains on the percentage of maize grains broken in harvesting. In the current era, when problems of nutrition and sustainability is a global issue, the quality of products and their harvest is very important.
Parts of the article "1. Introduction", "2. Threshing devices" and "3. Materials and Methods" could give good information and the current situation in the given field, but they are not clearly processed.
I have a few comments on the text:
1. Large paragraphs in the text are confusing, for example from lines 60 to 83; 141 to 169; 207 to 229. Therefore, I recommend dividing these paragraphs into several smaller logical paragraphs.
2. In my opinion, equations 1, 2 and 3 are not correct.
I ask the authors to verify the correctness of equation 1, which has the following on lines 170 and 171:
where v is the peripheral speed of cylinder (m·s-1) n is the rotating speed of cylinder 170 (r·min-1) D is the diameter of cylinder (mm).
- If you substitute 1 diameter of cylinder D (mm) into the formula, how can the result be in (m·s-1)? Therefore, equation 1 needs to be corrected.
3. In equation 2 and on lines 178 and 179 it is stated:
where m1 is the total mass of maize grains (kg), m2 is the mass of the broken grains (kg), y is the percentage of grains broken (%).
- This result y will not be the percentage of grains broken (%), but y is the ratio of grains broken (-). Authors should strictly follow the correct units for "percentage of grains broken (POGB)" in all calculations, tables and citations. Therefore, equation 2 needs to be corrected.
4. Equation 3 and lines 239 to 243 state:
The mass of maize fed can be calculated as follows: Q=M(L/S+1)H (3)
where Q is the mass of maize fed (kg), M is the ear mass (kg), L is the working distance of harvester in per second (mm), S is the plant spacing (mm), H is the number of rows of maize plants harvested by harvester.
- At the same article, Mass fed (kg·s-1) is correctly stated in Table 5. Therefore, equation 3 needs to be corrected.
5. The frequent use of abbreviations, e.g. AFN, AFRBSS, AFRBBS, TAF, etc. is practical for the Tables, but very confusing. Therefore, I recommend adding an explanation to each table or in the text as to what the given abbreviation means, what its meaning is.
6. Part of article “5. Discussion” should "discuss" the results found, especially comparing them with the results of other authors from previous articles, listed, for example, in the Introduction and other articles with a similar theme. This section needs to be completed.
7. Part of article “6. Conclusions” contains many abbreviations in the text. In this section, it is not appropriate to use abbreviations, so they must be replaced with verbal expressions. Many parts of this chapter would be better placed in the “5. Discussion”. This part should contain summary information about the generalization of the achieved results and the possibilities of their use for further use in science and in practical applications.
8. The Reference section is not processed carefully; the listed publications are not processed according to the instructions for authors. E.g. “Petkevichiusa, S.; Shpokasa, L.; Kutzbachb, H.D. Investigation of the maize ear threshing process. Biosyst. Eng. 2008, 99, 532-539. 413” is wrong. I recommend that authors strictly follow the prescribed format of cited literature.
Author Response
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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
· Days to 50% silking is measure as number of days from planting (sowing) to silking of 50% of plants / plot. It is ranged between 50 – 75 days or more ( four to five days is not correct).
Minor editing of English language required
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
Dear authors
I have a comment on the text on lines 173 to 176.
Your text says:
The mass of maize fed can be calculated as follows:
Q=M(L/S+1)H (2)
where Q is the mass of maize fed per unit area (kg/m), M is the ear mass (kg/m), L is the working distance of harvester in per second (m), S is the plant spacing (m) , H is the number of rows of maize plants harvested by harvester.
The correction you made is not correct in my opinion. Besides, by the way, the dimension for the unit area is not m.
I don't know why you are making a different unit for maize fed Q.
I already wrote to you in the last review that at this article, Mass fed (kg·s-1) is correctly stated in Table 5.
Therefore, in the new text equation 2 needs to be corrected so that the result is Mass fed (kg·s-1).
Author Response
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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 3
Reviewer 2 Report
Dear authors,
I do not agree with your correction on the text on lines 173 to 176.
Your text: "L is the working distance of harvester in per second (m)" is strange. I don't know what you call "working distance in per second". Perhaps it should be in m/s.
Therefore, the formula is again not correct.
I am not sure why you present this formula (2) in your text. It seems that you have not used this formula in the following calculations. In my opinion, this formula (2) and the whole paragraph in this text is unnecessary.
Author Response
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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 4
Reviewer 2 Report
Dear authors,
I would like to ask you to add the appropriate units to the results shown in the Tables, e.g. in Table 3, 4, 7, 8, 9. Usually, the units are given in the header of the Table or the relevant quantity in the line. In the mentioned Tables, the units are not listed.
Author Response
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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 5
Reviewer 2 Report
The authors edited the text and corrected the formal shortcomings of the article. I recommend this article for publication.
Author Response
Thank you for your valuable comments during your busy schedule. Thank you very much for your patience and professionalism in making our article improve. We appreciate your recognition of our article, which greatly encourages and motivates us. We will continue to strive to do better. Thank you again for your contribution to this article. Thank you!
