A First Study of Urginea maritima Rings: A Case Study from Southern Jordan

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

• For the article Title, I do suggest authors replace the current title with a new one. The current title does not convey the main topic of the research and overstates the significance of this study. Is it a fact that this is the first study?
• Line 84: Here should be Fig. 2? Also please check whether the abbreviation form is required in the main text. To my knowledge, MDPI journals require to do not abbreviating Table and Figure to Tab. or Fig.
• Line 107: “Volumetric soil-water content, from three depths (7.5, 12, and 20 cm), …”, Why did authors set up these three depths (7.5, 12, and 20 cm) in the field experiment? Was it based on the TDR probe length? Is it more reasonable to set up according to the soil layer structure or other criteria? The authors should add the corresponding explanation at the appropriate place.
• Line 112: “…five soil samples were obtained from the 3.5 and 7 cm depths…”. This setup for soil sample depths seems unreasonable. A carefully designed experiment should make the soil sample depths consistent with soil water content.
• Line 114: “Drying to a constant weight” should be added.
• Line 116: What soil properties? Should be detailed.
• Line 167: Fig. 4c? Please carefully check the citing form for Figures and Table throughout the manuscript. The same mistakes happened in Line 205 and Line 209, etc. Also check the references cited in the main text, e.g., Line 223.
• Line 189: Add significance level for p-value.

Author Response

Referee 1

We thank referee 1 for the valuable comments that we address below.

• For the article Title, I do suggest authors replace the current title with a new one. The current title does not convey the main topic of the research and overstates the significance of this study. Is it a fact that this is the first study?

We think that the title is correct as this is indeed the first study of Urginea maritima rings and there is no other study devoted to the formation of these rings.

• Line 84: Here should be Fig. 2? Also please check whether the abbreviation form is required in the main text. To my knowledge, MDPI journals require to do not abbreviating Table and Figure to Tab. or Fig.

Corrected.

• Line 107: “Volumetric soil-water content, from three depths (7.5, 12, and 20 cm), …”, Why did authors set up these three depths (7.5, 12, and 20 cm) in the field experiment? Was it based on the TDR probe length? Is it more reasonable to set up according to the soil layer structure or other criteria? The authors should add the corresponding explanation at the appropriate place.

We added that these depths are the probe lengths that came with the TDR.

• Line 112: “…five soil samples were obtained from the 3.5 and 7 cm depths…”. This setup for soil sample depths seems unreasonable. A carefully designed experiment should make the soil sample depths consistent with soil water content.

We took samples from these two depths as they well represent the soil properties from the two upper layer. Since we didn't want to make a significant disturbance to the ring, we didn’t take samples from a greater depth that would require much more digging.

• Line 114: “Drying to a constant weight” should be added.

Added.

• Line 116: What soil properties? Should be detailed.

The soil properties we measured in this study are detailed in sec. 2.2 Field measurements.

• Line 167: Fig. 4c? Please carefully check the citing form for Figures and Table throughout the manuscript. The same mistakes happened in Line 205 and Line 209, etc. Also check the references cited in the main text, e.g., Line 223.

We thank the reviewer and we corrected all these mistakes in the revised manuscript.

• Line 189: Add significance level for p-value.

The P values are detailed in Table 1, for each of the sub-tables A, B, and C.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

Your work is interested, written well, and organized.

This manuscript reports a first study of Urginea maritima rings: A case study from southern Jordan. The study design meets the general standards and from what I can judge the data is being collected and analyzed appropriately. This work is an unpublished manuscript with relevant information that should be made public in a scientific journal for discussion among scientists working in the field.

However, there are some comments should be considered before publishing, in this way, the social and scientific relevance of the manuscript would be improved:

Line 139: should say: water-limited

Line 224: should say: contrasts.

Line 241: should say: more humid condition

Discussion

Line 253: I continue to add a paragraph that summarizes the importance, usefulness and social relevance, contemporary of the study, specifically pointing out the Impact, Benefit and Projection, something like this (for example):

Studies carried out at different soil depths similar to those studied in U. maritima, established that the areas with the highest growth points (meristems) in the Musaceae bulb that gave rise to pseudostems, roots and vegetative buds were influenced by soil texture, soil dry consistency, reaction to HCl, type of soil structure and biological activity [26].

Another important finding establishes that the physical properties of the soil in Musaceae plantations on lacustrine soils do not favor the rapid movement of water, as is the case of the high values ​​of soil bulk density observed in some plots, which are associated with their lacustrine origin with high contents. of calcium carbonate [27], which can affect the normal development of the bulbs and roots of this type of plants; this indicates that U. maritima could be influenced by the arid environment of sparse Mediterranean scrub or rocky terrain, with greater emphasis on the calcareous characteristics of the soil, which in the case of some plant species could affect the bulb and subsequently the productivity, favoring the incidence of diseases in microenvironments.

References

I suggest adding recent references which address the issue in question in other territories. An important proportion of references are very old (more than 15 to 30 years), I suggest incorporating the new recommended references in the discussion section, that would improve the scientific quality of the candidate manuscript. Suggested citations are for genuine scientific reasons that emphasize the current topic of study in context:

[26] Olivares BO, Calero J, Rey JC, Lobo D, Landa BB, Gómez JA. Correlation of banana productivity levels and soil morphological properties using regularized optimal scaling regression. Catena. 2022; 208: 105718. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.catena.2021.105718

[27] Campos, O., Araya-Alman, M., Acevedo-Opazo, C., Cañete-Salinas, P., Rey, J.C., Lobo, D., & Landa, B. (2020), Relationship Between Soil Properties and Banana Productivity in the Two Main Cultivation Areas in Venezuela. Journal of Soil Science and Plant Nutrition, 20(3), 2512-2524.  https://doi.org/10.1007/s42729-020-00317-8.

Author Response

Referee 2

Your work is interested, written well, and organized.

This manuscript reports a first study of Urginea maritima rings: A case study from southern Jordan. The study design meets the general standards and from what I can judge the data is being collected and analyzed appropriately. This work is an unpublished manuscript with relevant information that should be made public in a scientific journal for discussion among scientists working in the field.

We thank the Referee 2 for his/her positive attitude regarding our work.

However, there are some comments should be considered before publishing, in this way, the social and scientific relevance of the manuscript would be improved:

Line 139: should say: water-limited

Corrected.

Line 224: should say: contrasts.

The infiltration contrast is the appropriate phrase. 

Line 241: should say: more humid condition

Corrected.

Discussion

Line 253: I continue to add a paragraph that summarizes the importance, usefulness and social relevance, contemporary of the study, specifically pointing out the Impact, Benefit and Projection, something like this (for example):

Studies carried out at different soil depths similar to those studied in U. maritima, established that the areas with the highest growth points (meristems) in the Musaceae bulb that gave rise to pseudostems, roots and vegetative buds were influenced by soil texture, soil dry consistency, reaction to HCl, type of soil structure and biological activity [26].

Another important finding establishes that the physical properties of the soil in Musaceae plantations on lacustrine soils do not favor the rapid movement of water, as is the case of the high values ​​of soil bulk density observed in some plots, which are associated with their lacustrine origin with high contents. of calcium carbonate [27], which can affect the normal development of the bulbs and roots of this type of plants; this indicates that U. maritima could be influenced by the arid environment of sparse Mediterranean scrub or rocky terrain, with greater emphasis on the calcareous characteristics of the soil, which in the case of some plant species could affect the bulb and subsequently the productivity, favoring the incidence of diseases in microenvironments.

The following paragraph has been added to the end of the discussion section according to the referee's suggestion:

Studies carried out at different soil depths similar to those studied in U. maritima, established that the areas with the highest growth points (meristems) in the Musaceae bulb that gave rise to pseudostems, roots and vegetative buds were influenced by soil texture, soil dry consistency, reaction to HCl, type of soil structure and biological activity [26,27]. These studies may indicate that U. maritima could be influenced by the arid environment of sparse Mediterranean scrub or rocky terrain, with greater emphasis on the calcareous characteristics of the soil, which in the case of some plant species could affect the bulb and subsequently the productivity, favoring the incidence of diseases in microenvironments e.g. the ring's interior.

References

I suggest adding recent references which address the issue in question in other territories. An important proportion of references are very old (more than 15 to 30 years), I suggest incorporating the new recommended references in the discussion section, that would improve the scientific quality of the candidate manuscript. Suggested citations are for genuine scientific reasons that emphasize the current topic of study in context:

[26] Olivares BO, Calero J, Rey JC, Lobo D, Landa BB, Gómez JA. Correlation of banana productivity levels and soil morphological properties using regularized optimal scaling regression. Catena. 2022; 208: 105718. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.catena.2021.105718

[27] Campos, O., Araya-Alman, M., Acevedo-Opazo, C., Cañete-Salinas, P., Rey, J.C., Lobo, D., & Landa, B. (2020), Relationship Between Soil Properties and Banana Productivity in the Two Main Cultivation Areas in Venezuela. Journal of Soil Science and Plant Nutrition, 20(3), 2512-2524.  https://doi.org/10.1007/s42729-020-00317-8.

We added these two references to the list.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

This manuscript is a resubmission of an earlier submission. The following is a list of the peer review reports and author responses from that submission.