Developing an Open-Source IoT Platform for Optimal Irrigation Scheduling and Decision-Making: Implementation at Olive Grove Parcels
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
The authors present an IoT infrastructure that involves a network of sensors to monitor various parameters relates to water use efficiency in agriculture. The system was developed and deployed in Crete, Greece and included various installations that feed data onto a publicly available dashboard.
A few things to consider for improving the manuscript:
a) As we move towards enhancing decision-making to support farmers and growers, the analysis of such data and exploiting intelligent scheduling of processes within a unified platform and framework is crucial. Please expand your introduction to cover platforms that can be used in IoT settings and which can also accommodate analytics at scale:
--Onoufriou, G., Bickerton, R., Pearson, S. and Leontidis, G., 2019. Nemesyst: A hybrid parallelism deep learning-based framework applied for internet of things enabled food retailing refrigeration systems. Computers in Industry, 113, p.103133.
--Lutz, E. and Coradi, P.C., 2022. Applications of new technologies for monitoring and predicting grains quality stored: Sensors, internet of things, and artificial intelligence. Measurement, 188, p.110609.
b) Please be explicit in the introduction what is the novelty of this work and the contribution(s).
c) Exemplify what this platform can do to support the proper use of resources towards achieving net zero and sustainability in agriculture.
A few typos and some proofreading is required but nothing major.
Author Response
Response to Reviewers
Dear Editor/ Reviewers,
The author tried to consider all your valuable comments which have improved significantly the manuscript.
Responses are summarized in this document and are also highlighted in the manuscript in blue font.
Reviewer 1
The authors present an IoT infrastructure that involves a network of sensors to monitor various parameters relates to water use efficiency in agriculture. The system was developed and deployed in Crete, Greece and included various installations that feed data onto a publicly available dashboard.
A few things to consider for improving the manuscript:
- a) As we move towards enhancing decision-making to support farmers and growers, the analysis of such data and exploiting intelligent scheduling of processes within a unified platform and framework is crucial. Please expand your introduction to cover platforms that can be used in IoT settings and which can also accommodate analytics at scale:
--Onoufriou, G., Bickerton, R., Pearson, S. and Leontidis, G., 2019. Nemesyst: A hybrid parallelism deep learning-based framework applied for internet of things enabled food retailing refrigeration systems. Computers in Industry, 113, p.103133.
--Lutz, E. and Coradi, P.C., 2022. Applications of new technologies for monitoring and predicting grains quality stored: Sensors, internet of things, and artificial intelligence. Measurement, 188, p.110609.
Reply: Thank you for your comment, references – sources of the data - have been added (see lines 69-73, 86-90).
- b) Please be explicit in the introduction what is the novelty of this work and the contribution(s).
Reply: The author would like to thank the reviewer for this constructive comment, please see lines 93-98.
- c) Exemplify what this platform can do to support the proper use of resources towards achieving net zero and sustainability in agriculture.
Reply: the suggestion was taken into consideration (see lines 106-111)
The author would like to thank all the reviewers for their constructive comments. Their incorporation in the manuscript has greatly improved its content.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.docx
Reviewer 2 Report
The manuscript is very interesting about the important topic of climate change. Thank you for inviting me to review your work.
Abstract. This section lacks substantive information on what the purpose of the work is, when the research was carried out, and what the soil was like. Also in this section, there is no information about what the results of the research were.
Introduction. This section lacks emphasis on what novelty is in the work and what scientific gap the work fills. I also recommend, at the end of the section, adding a description of how the manuscript is organized. This section also lacks information on why Crete was chosen for the study.
The strong side is a very interesting methodology and graphic presentation, including photos. The weak point is a rather modest review of the literature and a conclusion that is far too short. I recommend adding literature:
https://doi.org/10.3390/en15072433
The manuscript needs refinement on the punctuation side.
Author Response
Response to Reviewers
Dear Editor/ Reviewers,
The author tried to consider all your valuable comments which have improved significantly the manuscript.
Responses are summarized in this document and are also highlighted in the manuscript in blue font.
Reviewer 2
The manuscript is very interesting about the important topic of climate change. Thank you for inviting me to review your work.
Abstract. This section lacks substantive information on what the purpose of the work is, when the research was carried out, and what the soil was like. Also in this section, there is no information about what the results of the research were.
Reply: Thank you for your valuable comment. The suggestion was taken into consideration, please see the new version of the abstract. Also, the authors believe that some specific information such as the installation time or soil type, which also has variable characteristics (depending on the field), might be better not placed in the abstract section as this information is detailed in the text, for example in table 1 .
Introduction. This section lacks emphasis on what novelty is in the work and what scientific gap the work fills. I also recommend, at the end of the section, adding a description of how the manuscript is organized. This section also lacks information on why Crete was chosen for the study.
Reply: The suggestion was taken into consideration, see lines 93-98 and information about why Crete was chosen in lines 16-18 and 124-133 (study area sub-section). Regarding your recommendation to add a description of how the manuscript is organized, please see lines 112-118.
The strong side is a very interesting methodology and graphic presentation, including photos. The weak point is a rather modest review of the literature and a conclusion that is far too short. I recommend adding literature:
https://doi.org/10.3390/en15072433
Thank you for your comment, references – sources of the data - have been added [see: (lines 69-73, 86-90, 93-98, 106-111 / introduction section) and (lines 568-570 /conclusion section)]
The author would like to thank all the reviewers for their constructive comments. Their incorporation in the manuscript has greatly improved its content.
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Reviewer 3 Report
The manuscript was drafted very clearly and the authors were very careful to describe the experimentation and methodology well. The introduction clarified well what is the scenario and the usefulness of this research.
The manuscript is very interesting and the quality of the experimentation is high. The information transmission system appears workable and can be easily disseminated among farmers and does not require much knowledge.
The information delivered to the user can be fast and effective. The research appears complete and well delivered to the reader.
Here are just a few suggestions:
1) in table 1 the variability values of the entered data must also be entered.
So for example the standard deviation.
2) In line 304 for the Van Genuchten formula it must be indicated what is alpha.
3) Materials and methods should describe the humidity sensors, their type and main characteristics. The depth in which they were inserted is also indicated, but the distance from the plants is not clear.
4) In the description of the use of soil moisture sensors, I suggest this research that used soil moisture sensors at two depths to also evaluate permeability over time:
Romano, E.; Bergonzoli, S.; Bisaglia, C.; Picchio, R.; Scarfone, A. The Correlation between Proximal and Remote Sensing Methods for Monitoring Soil Water Content in Agricultural Applications. Electronics 2023, 12, 127. https://doi.org/10.3390/electronics12010127
For all the rest, I have no indications to deliver and I can only offer my compliments to the authors who have tried to find a feasible solution in agricultural reality and have followed a scientific scheme in setting up monitoring.
I invite the authors to continue their research in this area.
Author Response
Response to Reviewers
Dear Editor/ Reviewers,
The author tried to consider all your valuable comments which have improved significantly the manuscript.
Responses are summarized in this document and are also highlighted in the manuscript in blue font.
Reviewer 3
The manuscript was drafted very clearly and the authors were very careful to describe the experimentation and methodology well. The introduction clarified well what is the scenario and the usefulness of this research.
The manuscript is very interesting and the quality of the experimentation is high. The information transmission system appears workable and can be easily disseminated among farmers and does not require much knowledge.
The information delivered to the user can be fast and effective. The research appears complete and well delivered to the reader.
Here are just a few suggestions:
1) in table 1 the variability values of the entered data must also be entered.
So for example the standard deviation.
Reply: The suggestion was taken into consideration (please see table 1)
2) In line 304 for the Van Genuchten formula it must be indicated what is alpha.
Reply: please see lines 331- 332
3) Materials and methods should describe the humidity sensors, their type and main characteristics. The depth in which they were inserted is also indicated, but the distance from the plants is not clear.
Reply: The suggestion was taken into consideration see lines 416-424 as well as Table 2 and also the lines 178-183
4) In the description of the use of soil moisture sensors, I suggest this research that used soil moisture sensors at two depths to also evaluate permeability over time:
Romano, E.; Bergonzoli, S.; Bisaglia, C.; Picchio, R.; Scarfone, A. The Correlation between Proximal and Remote Sensing Methods for Monitoring Soil Water Content in Agricultural Applications. Electronics 2023, 12, 127. https://doi.org/10.3390/electronics12010127
Reply: The suggestion was taken into consideration see lines 405-412
For all the rest, I have no indications to deliver and I can only offer my compliments to the authors who have tried to find a feasible solution in agricultural reality and have followed a scientific scheme in setting up monitoring.
I invite the authors to continue their research in this area.
The author would like to thank all the reviewers for their constructive comments. Their incorporation in the manuscript has greatly improved its content.
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Round 2
Reviewer 2 Report
Dear Authors,
Thank you for correcting the manuscript. The work contains minor grammatical errors and requires some refinement of punctuation.
Dear Authors,
Thank you for correcting the manuscript. The work contains minor grammatical errors and requires some refinement of punctuation.
