Effects of a Multifunctional Cover Crop (LivinGro^®) on Soil Quality Indicators in Zaragoza, Spain

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Corrections and indications are in the attached file.

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Thank you very much for your feedback. It has been taken into consideration. We have attached a document with detailed responses

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The ms land-3353993 entitled Effects of a multifunctional cover crop (LivinGro®) on soil quality at an experimental agricultural plot in Zaragoza (Spain) investigates an important topic but the authors have to revise and improve their ms according the following comments to make it suitable in such high quality journal:

Revise the title and try to use some other words instead of “an experimental agricultural plot”

Please add the country in affiliation 1.

L18 over three years! Please mention them.

Keywords: what is the different between soil properties and soil quality?

L64 CO2  subscription  Same comment in L66 (NO3-)

L91-92 Only nectarines? Were there other crops?

In figure 2: use precipitation  instead of rainfall

Why authors decided to use those cover crops?

What are the types of weeds and their names that are grown there?

L134 100 cm3 cylinders  make it superscript

Please check superscript and subscript in whole ms, I can not tell you each one.

Why you did not check the mycorrhizae in soil?

L153 p-value below 0.05 or p-value below 0.01 . This is wrong, it should be p-value ≤ 0.05 or p-value ≤ 0.01

L154 IBM SPSS Statistics , here you should which company name, city, country.

Results were well written, but I prefer authors to convery some Figures to Tables.

Discussion: The authors should make it stronger as well as they should use some recent and relevant references. In addition, they should discuss their results with other findings.

Authors should follow the guidelines of MDPI in terms of references list.

Good luck

 

 

 

 

 

 

Comments on the Quality of English Language

Can be improved

Author Response

Thank you very much for your feedback. It has been taken into consideration. We have attached a document with detailed responses

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Comments on the manuscript land-3353993

To reveal the influence mechanism of multifunctional cover crops on soil quality in experimental fields can provide important theoretical reference and practical guidance for monitoring soil quality and improving soil fertility. The authors’ thinking is correct, but the manuscript still has the following defects.

First, the study involved only a few basic physical and chemical indicators, and lacked microbiological indicators. As an important driving factor of soil nutrient cycling, soil microbial index can not be ignored in evaluating soil quality.

Secondly, the authors did not dig deeply enough into the data, and only revealed the differences between relevant indicators in different treatments through one-way ANOVA. The authors should try to construct the relationship between soil quality index and crop yield through redundancy analysis and structural equation model.

Finally, the innovation of the manuscript is not strong. There are many researches on the evolution of soil quality at present, and the innovation or features of this manuscript are not outstanding enough. The authors did not present a clear scientific question or hypothesis in the introduction.

Based on the above defects, I am very sorry that I cannot recommend this manuscript to be accepted for publication.

Author Response

Thank you very much for your feedback. It has been taken into consideration. We have attached a document with detailed responses

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The authors must revise p less than 0.01 and p less than 0.05 to

P less than equal... 

Please use the symbols 

Author Response

Thank you very much for your indication, it has been addressed in the manuscript, and the symbols have been used correctly.   Kind regards.

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Thank you for your time and revision. I think the revised manuscript has reached the publication standard.

Author Response

Thank you very much for your guidance.

Kind regards.