Response Surface Methodology for Development of Nutrient Solution Formula for Hydroponic Lettuce Based on the Micro-Elements Fertilizer Requirements at Different Growth Stages
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsIntroduction:
Can you have more detail on why you chose Ca and Mg in your research instead of other micronutrients?
Can you have any reference to support the following sentence: However, current commonly used nutrient solution formulas, such as those of Hoagland, Yamazaki, Enshi and compound water-soluble fertilizers, are often used to prepare nutrient solutions for many types of vegetables.
Material and Method:
Do you know the light cycle and day/night temperature for the greenhouse?
Can you explain why you grow lettuce in pH 7.0 hydroponics? Isn’t it be 5.5 to 6.5?
Can you have more detail on Hoagland nutrient solution, such as nutrient level(M) and where did you get? Do you prepare it by yourself or purchase it from somewhere?
It will be better to have the nutrients for CK to T7, which is Table 7, in the material and methods instead of in the results.
Results
3.1 You have different nutrient treatments for lettuce. What nutrient treatment for the lettuce in Table 2?
Discussion
Since you have the data of fresh weight, dry weight, and nutrient, can you have more discussion in why different nutrient solutions make the difference in fresh weight and dry weight?
4.2 You didn’t have the right format in citing Neese et al., 2007
Tables:
Although I can understand what is in the tables, can you align the variables and numbers better? Ex. Variable Value in Table 1 and P K Ca Mg in Table 4.
Table 5. I know you have described what X1 to X4 is in table 1, but can you have one more sentence in table 5 for what X1, X2, X3, and X4 are in your function?
Reference:
The residence is in the reference order. Please correct it. Ex. “1.” “1.” Richa, A., Touil, S., Fizir, M., Martinez, V. (2020). Recent advances and perspectives in the treatment of hydroponic wastewater: a review. Rev Environ Sci Biotechnol. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11157-020-09555-9
The reference 12 is indicating the ratios of NO3- and NH4+, but it is the nutrient composition of the solution in your sentence instead of the nitrogen source composition of the solution. Could you find another reference to support your idea?
The reference 38 is published in 1998. Could you find any references in 10 years?
You cite the reference 41 for that Mg plays an important role in many biochemical processes of plants, such as chlorophyll synthesis, photosynthetic carbon fixation, and protein and nucleic acid synthesis [41]. But the reference 41 is a review for the Mg effect in roots. Can you find more information about the Mg effect in leaves or shoots?
Author Response
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Comments 7: You have different nutrient treatments for lettuce. What nutrient treatment for the lettuce in Table 2? |
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Response 7: Thank you for pointing this out. The Hoagland nutrient solution we used in Experiment 1(Table 2)
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Reviewer 2 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsThe study focus on a nutrient solution formula suitable for lettuce hydroponic production was development using the response surface methodology based on the determination for micro-elements in three growth stages and taking into the interaction between elements. The article is on interest and i have following observations.
1. Dont ciite bunch of refs rather discuss each one
2.In the introduction section add paper classification with main contributions of the proposed work addressing the researach gaps.
3. How the objective function is derived should be more clear.
4. Add a figure or flowchart to show the proposed method is a better way to convey the proposed workflow of the work
5. Results needs to improve by comparaing and adding more samples
6. Add more recent works like "An IoT and machine learning based intelligent system for the classification of therapeutic plants"
Comments on the Quality of English Languagesuggestions provided to the authors
Author Response
Response to Reviewer 2 Comments
Thank you very much for taking the time to review this manuscript. Please find the detailed responses below and the corrections highlight in the resubmitted files.
Comments 1: Dont ciite bunch of refs rather discuss each one
Response 1: Thank you for pointing this out. We agree with this comment. Therefore, we have analyzed some existing results separately in the introduction section (second and third paragraphs) and divided the discussion into four parts for detailed discussion.
Comments 2: In the introduction section add paper classification with main contributions of the proposed work addressing the researach gaps
Response 2: Thank you for pointing this out. We agree with this comment. Therefore, We have added paper classification with main contributions of the proposed work addressing the research gaps in the second, third, and fourth paragraphs of the introduction section.
Comments 3: How the objective function is derived should be more clear
Response 3: Thank you for pointing this out. We agree with this comment. Therefore, We have detailed test instructions in the materials and methods section.
Comments 4: Add a figure or flowchart to show the proposed method is a better way to convey the proposed workflow of the work
Response 4: Thank you for pointing this out. We agree with this comment. Therefore, we have added a flowchart (Figure 1).
Comments 5: Results needs to improve by comparaing and adding more samples
Response 5: Thank you for pointing this out.. In this experiment, sufficient samples and repetitions were set for each part of the experiment. Experiment 1 consisted of 200 samples and 5 repetitions; Experiment 2 and Experiment 3 each treated 30 plants, with 3 replicates; The sample size is already large for agricultural experiments, and if we use big data or machine learning methods in the future, we will further increase the data.
Comments 6: Add more recent works like "An IoT and machine learning based intelligent system for the classification of therapeutic plants"
Response 6: Thank you for pointing this out. We have added two relevant research references. 41. Edge Device Fault Probability Based Intelligent Calculations for Fault Probability of Smart Systems Tsinghua Science and Technology, 29 (4): 1023-1036
42. An IoT and machine learning based intelligent system for the classification of thermal plants, Neural Process Lett, 54 (5), 4465-4493
Reviewer 3 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsComments
1. The paper does not have the line number (Please insert line number).
2. The level of English throughout the Manuscript does not meet the Agronomy Journal's required standard. As a result, you might consider asking a native speaker to proofread your manuscript for grammar, style, and syntax. As a result, you might consider asking a native speaker to proofread your manuscript for grammar, style, and syntax.
Abstract:
The authors mentioned that: Previous studies on the nutrient solution formular of vegetable have rarely considered the requirements of different growth stages and the interaction of nutrient elements. It is well known that lettuce has a vegetative growth only in comparison to other leafy crops such as basil compared to other vegetables such as tomato.
The abstract must have a rationale, an objective, materials and methods, results, and conclusions. The first sentence must be a rationale.
1. Introduction
There is no need to include information regarding the history of hydroponics, which is essential for vegetable cultivation. The authors could include additional information regarding the response surface methodology used for developing a nutrient solution formula for hydroponic lettuce based on microelement fertilizer requirements at various growth stages.
Why do the authors have three growth stages for lettuce?
Please insert more information about the response surface methodology under hydroponics.
Why do the authors use response surface methodology for micronutrients? It is well known that lettuce needs macronutrients such N in high quantities due to leafy crops.
2. Materials and methods
2.1. Plant material and plant cultivation
Why did the author optimize the EC and pH of the nutrient solution were adjusted to 2.0 dS m−1 and 7.0? The ideal EC for lettuce under hydroponics is 1.4-1.8 and the pH ranged from 5.5-5.8.
Please explain what the experimental design is, as well as the experimental factors.
Please mention the experimental design and treatments as well as the statistical analysis in a clear way.
What about the period for conducting this experiment in days?
Please include the following details:
The experiment started on day month year and ended on day month year. For example, the experiment started on 22 June 2016 and ended on 22 October 2020.
What is the system used to grow the lettuce in this experiment? Is it DWC, NFT, or a substrate?
What about other cultivation information such as planting density, and seedling age?
The authors divided the growth stages of lettuce into three stages: seedling, rosette and harvest. Please mention in days for each stage.
3. Results
Please Re-arrange the data in the results section to be the growth and yield data of lettuce first and then the other data.
4. Discussion
The discussion section must be presented under certain subtitles, as the authors did for the results. As the authors presented their results under certain subtitles in the Results section, they also suggested developing subtitles under the Discussion section. The authors mostly only make comparisons of their results with the literature's results. However, they do not discuss the mechanisms by which the results are obtained.
Comments on the Quality of English Language
The level of English throughout the Manuscript does not meet the Agronomy Journal's required standard. As a result, you might consider asking a native speaker to proofread your manuscript for grammar, style, and syntax. As a result, you might consider asking a native speaker to proofread your manuscript for grammar, style, and syntax
Author Response
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Comments 7: Why did the author optimize the EC and pH of the nutrient solution were adjusted to 2.0 dS m−1 and 7.0? The ideal EC for lettuce under hydroponics is 1.4-1.8 and the pH ranged from 5.5-5.8. |
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Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
Comments and Suggestions for Authorsthe article looks good to me, and the authors have good responses to reviewer's comments
