Yields, Soil Health and Farm Profits under a Rice-Wheat System: Long-Term Effect of Fertilizers and Organic Manures Applied Alone and in Combination
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
The subject of the manuscript is quite interesting, mainly because long-term experiment which allow to evaluate long-term effects of the treatments.
Below are detailed comments for the manuscript:
1) How many replication (blocks) were in the experiment. Such information is missing in Material and methods
2) Weather data for each year, especially sum of precipitation and temperatures will be useful to confirm that effect of climate change has no effect (or such effect exists) on grain yields.
3) The results are presented in some parts of the manuscript not clearly, e.g. in Table 3 there are no explanation what does mean “***”. Most probably it means P<0.001 but it is not explained. Moreover in Table 3 regression coefficients (b) are presented with various number of decimal places (two for rice and four for wheat). It should be consistent.
4) What procedure of multiple comparisons of the means was applied? Such information should be included in the section 2.6. Statistical analysis and computations
5) Patterns on the columns in Fig. 5 cause low readability of that figure. I suggest to change the patterns into solid colors.
6) The manuscript do not contain any appendices because of that parts Appendix A and Appendix B should be removed.
Author Response
S. No. | Reviewer comments | Compliance |
1 | How many replication (blocks) were in the experiment. Such information is missing in Material and methods | There were four replications in the experiment. It is now mentioned in the Material and Methods section (line 154). |
2 | Weather data for each year, especially sum of precipitation and temperatures will be useful to confirm that effect of climate change has no effect (or such effect exists) on grain yields. | Average yearly temperature (minimum and maximum) and annual rainfall during study period has been illustrated in Figure 1, and also referred in the text (lines 124-126) |
3 | The results are presented in some parts of the manuscript not clearly, e.g. in Table 3 there are no explanation what does mean “***”. Most probably it means P<0.001 but it is not explained. Moreover in Table 3 regression coefficients (b) are presented with various number of decimal places (two for rice and four for wheat). It should be consistent. | *** It is now explained in the footnote of Table 3 (line 261). It stands for p<0.001.< span=""> Regression coefficients (b) for both rice and wheat have same decimal places, consistently for all treatments. |
4 | What procedure of multiple comparisons of the means was applied? Such information should be included in the section 2.6. Statistical analysis and computations | For comparison of treatment means in the field experiments, ‘F-test’ was used. Multivariate analysis was adapted for multiple compression of the means. It is indicated in section 2.6. statistical analysis (line 234) |
5 | Patterns on the columns in Fig. 5 cause low readability of that figure. I suggest to change the patterns into solid colors. | Pattern of columns in the Fig. 6 has been improved. |
6 | The manuscript do not contain any appendices because of that parts Appendix A and Appendix B should be removed. | Appendix A and Appendix B were wrongly given, which have been deleted in revised manuscript. |
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Reviewer 2 Report
Review comments for manuscript titled ‘Yields, Soil Health and Farm Profits under Rice-Wheat System: Long-Term Effect of Fertilizers and Organic Manures Applied Alone or in Combination’
General comments: the author used word such as ‘organics’, ‘organic manure’, ‘organic fertilizer’ and ‘farm yard manure’ interchangeable. While these words are to a large extent related, they do not mean the exact same thing. The author actually used Farm yard manure for this study. Hence, it is most appropriate to use the term farm yard manure.
Title: from information presented in lines 142-147, the word ‘or’ in the title should be replaced with ‘and’. Hence, the title should read “Yields, Soil Health and Farm Profits under Rice-Wheat System: Long-Term Effect of Fertilizers and Organic Manures Applied Alone and in Combination”
Line 22: organics (OF) and fertilizers applied alone (RDF) or in combination (IPNS) did the author mean ‘organics fertilizer (OF) and mineral fertilizers applied alone (RDF) and in combination (IPNS)’?
line 51: scientific name of rice is ‘Oryza sativa’ and not ‘Oriza sativa’
Line 94: the author should replace the word ‘bottleneck’ with either ‘setback’ or ‘demerit’.
Line 114: kindly state the season (spring, or summer), or month of the 1998/99 when the experiment was established.\
Organics or farm yard manure? The author should be specific.
Line 160: how cured or rotten was the farm yard manure before application? And why was it applied just 1 week before planting instead of the ‘generally accepted’ 3-4 weeks before planting?
Line 472: the word ‘waysi’ should be replaced with ‘ways, i)’
Lines 475: replace the word ‘conjoint’ with ‘concurrent’ or ‘simultaneous’.
Line 487-489: the author made the statement that ‘Sustainable high yield under the IPNS+B or IPNS+C may be associated with a reduction of prominent weeds like Echinochloa sp. in rice and Phalaris minor in wheat under the legume included plots’. kindly reconcile this statement with lines 166-167 where you mentioned that chemical herbicides were used to maintain weed free conditions in all treatment except OF.
Author Response
S. No. | Reviewer comments | Reply |
1 | General comments: the author used word such as ‘organics’, ‘organic manure’, ‘organic fertilizer’ and ‘farm yard manure’ interchangeable. While these words are to a large extent related, they do not mean the exact same thing. The author actually used Farm yard manure for this study. Hence, it is most appropriate to use the term farm yard manure. | As advised, the term farm yard manure (FYM) is used throughout revised manuscript. |
2 | Title: from information presented in lines 142-147, the word ‘or’ in the title should be replaced with ‘and’. Hence, the title should read “Yields, Soil Health and Farm Profits under Rice-Wheat System: Long-Term Effect of Fertilizers and Organic Manures Applied Alone and in Combination” | Word “or” has been replaced with “and” in the title (lines 4 and 22) |
3 | Line 22: organics (OF) and fertilizers applied alone (RDF) or in combination (IPNS) did the author mean ‘organics fertilizer (OF) and mineral fertilizers applied alone (RDF) and in combination (IPNS)’? | Yes, it means organic fertilizer (OF) i.e. FYM and mineral fertilizers applied alone (RDF) and in combination (IPNS). The statement is corrected now (lines 21-22). |
4 | line 51: scientific name of rice is ‘Oryza sativa’ and not ‘Oriza sativa’ | Corrected (line 52). |
5 | Line 94: the author should replace the word ‘bottleneck’ with either ‘setback’ or ‘demerit’. | “bottleneck” is replaced with a more befitting word “constraints” (line 94). |
6 | Line 114: kindly state the season (spring, or summer), or month of the 1998/99 when the experiment was established | It was monsoon 1998-99 (line 115). |
7 | Organics or farm yard manure? The author should be specific. | Farm yard manure (FYM) is now written throughout manuscript |
8 | Line 160: how cured or rotten was the farm yard manure before application? And why was it applied just 1 week before planting instead of the ‘generally accepted’ 3-4 weeks before planting? | In intensive rice-wheat systems of the Indo-Gangetic Plains, well-rotten FYM is applied 7-10 days before rice transplanting or wheat sowing. The FYM used in the present study was well-rotten with a C/N ration of 6.2:1. Whereas, the time available between rice harvest and wheat sowing (maximum two weeks) does not permit FYM application 3-4 weeks prior to wheat sowing during winter, application much before rice transplanting (monsoon) is avoided to minimize N losses from FYM under extremely high day temperature (usually >40°C) during pre-monsoon/summer season. |
9 | Line 472: the word ‘waysi’ should be replaced with ‘ways, i)’ | Replaced (line 482). |
10 | Lines 475: replace the word ‘conjoint’ with ‘concurrent’ or ‘simultaneous’. | Complied as advised (line 484). |
11 | Line 487-489: the author made the statement that ‘Sustainable high yield under the IPNS+B or IPNS+C may be associated with a reduction of prominent weeds like Echinochloa sp. in rice and Phalaris minor in wheat under the legume included plots’. kindly reconcile this statement with lines 166-167 where you mentioned that chemical herbicides were used to maintain weed free conditions in all treatment except OF. | In fact, noxious weeds like Echinochloa sp. and Phalaris minor were not fully controlled by chemical herbicides, necessitating need-based manual spot-weeding depending on the intensity of weeds in different treatments. It is now indicated in the Material and Methods (section 2.1 ) so as to avoid any contradiction with the said statement in the Discussion section. |
Author Response File: Author Response.docx