Identifying the Influencing Factors of Plastic Film Mulching on Improving the Yield and Water Use Efficiency of Potato in the Northwest China
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Dear authors! Thank you for your great work. The article is filled with modern bioinformatic research methods and is devoted to the important topic of increasing the yield of potatoes.
There are a number of comments on the content of the work: 1. You have given little information about the structure and nature of the film used in WUE. The article does not say anything about the safety of use and the potential harm of mulching with this film. Surely the film is capable of releasing many toxic substances when heated in the sun, which evaporate, which pollutes the atmosphere. In addition, toxic substances released by the film, together with rain moisture, definitely enter the soil, polluting it, and then accumulate in vegetables. The ecological aspect of this work is not covered.
2. The manuscript lacks information on the cost-effectiveness of WUE.
3. Are there any studies on the effect of WUE on soil moisture? Does the soil under the film become swampy, covered with algae and moss?
4. No attention was paid to the varietal characteristics of potatoes. Did the effectiveness of mulching depend on the variety?
5. In your analysis, there is absolutely no information on how film mulching affects the resistance of potatoes to phytopathogens. Indeed, due to climate change, the distribution area of many phytopathogens is actively expanding to the northern and eastern territories of the world. I think that such information would increase the attractiveness of the article.
6. I also consider the territorial limitation of the results that were taken for analysis to be a disadvantage of the article. It would be good to extrapolate your results to the world level.
7. I do not agree with the phrase "Potato is a cool loving crop,". This is absolutely not true. Read the literature on potato farming. In connection with the appearance of such phrases in the text, the reader gets the idea that the article was prepared not by specialists in the field of agriculture, but by informatics, who only carried out bioinformatic work. In general, we can conclude that the article is hard to read and difficult to understand. This manuscript will be well understood only for a limited circle of readers - bioinformatics. The combination of factors into groups made by the authors is very conditional and for specialists in the field of agriculture will cause a lot of questions and doubts. After all, each factor, for example, the application of fertilizers, has its own nuances (how many times during the growing season it was applied to the plant, in the form of what salt was applied, at what dose). All these points are very important when growing potatoes, and they are not taken into account in the article, which reduces the level of confidence in the manuscript and positions it as a purely bioinformatic work, of little use to practicing agronomists and agricultural scientists. Respectfully yours, reviewer. May 29, 2023
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.docx
Reviewer 2 Report
Manuscript ID: water-2437081
Identifying the influencing factors of plastic film mulching on improving the yield and water use efficiency of potato in the Northwest China
The manuscript is comprehensive analysis of potato cultivation with plastic film mulching (PM) practice in Northwest China. Based on published literature, Authors quantified the impact of plastic film coverage on potato yield and water use efficiency, analyzed the response of film effect to fertilization, cultivation measures and film properties, and adopt random forest model to quantify the relative importance of factors to the role of PM on potato yield and WUE. The subject is interesting and results provide an advance in the current knowledge of plastic film mulching in potato cultivation in Northwest China. I read the manuscript with attention. The manuscript can be accepted for publishing in Water after minor revision have been made.
Keywords should reflected the scientific content of the work but should not be repetition of the title words (potato, yield, water use efficiency, China). Please find such words (which are not be repetition of the title) that more detail reflecting the scientific content of the work.
Abstract should briefly describe the experiment and summarize the paper’s main findings – about 200 words maximum.
All abbreviations should be defined the first time they appear (WOS, AP, AT).
Lines 50-51: “It is reported that PM increased crop yield and WUE by 45.5% and 58.0%, respectively” – what crop plants? Please specify them.
Lines 57-59: “Gao et al. [14] compared the effects of PM on yield and WUE in different crops and regions, the results showed potato and the Northwest China was the best, respectively” – it is not clear. What do you mean?
Lines 149-150: “Xc represents the average WUE under no PM” or “Xc represents the average yield and WUE under no PM”?
Lines 154-156: Reference should be added.
Line 178: Figure number should be added.
Figure 5: There should be ≤0.08.
Lines 300-303 and lines 316-317: Repetitions should be removed.
References should be according to the Instructions for Authors – abbreviated journal name should be used.
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
Dear authors! Thank you for the revisions to the manuscript and the responses. You provided adequate answers to only a part of the comments and did not eliminate all the shortcomings in the manuscript. The benefits of mulching film are very doubtful, you have not convinced me of its safety and protection of plants from pathogenic infections. I would like better corrections and an increase in the quality level of the article, because. the manuscript claims to be published in a highly rated journal. I leave the decision to accept the article to the editor.
Respectfully Yours, reviewer
