Design of a Small-Scale Hydroponic System for Indoor Farming of Leafy Vegetables

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Dear Authors,

The manuscript described the results of a laboratory experiment on the Design of а Small-Scale Hydroponic System for Indoor Sustainable Farming of Leafy Vegetables. The subject is interesting and results can provide an advance in current knowledge of the effect of Indoor Sustainable Farming of Leafy Vegetables in a new hydroponic system. I read the manuscript with attention. The manuscript cannot be accepted for publishing in the Agriculture in this form.

The manuscript should be majorly corrected and supplemented. There are no results, e.g. biometric features of cultivated plants in a hydroponic system. The work in its current form is a technical description of cultivation equipment and apparatus and physical parameters during cultivation. The work does not have enough information on how the applied cultivation system affects cultivated plants. The authors only provide information on the rate of germination of lettuce seeds.

In addition, below are the other proposed changes to the manuscript for Authors:

Line 68: describe in more detail what kind of IoT system is this?

Lines 117-121: the purpose of the research is missing what is the small-scale of the hydroponic system? Describe in the introduction.

The Material and Methods section:

Lacks a description of the leafy vegetables used for hydroponic cultivation and why lettuce was chosen. In addition, this cultivation system should be tested on a larger group of species or varieties of leafy vegetables.

There is also no information on whether plant protection against pathogens (fungicides, insecticides) was used in the cultivation of lettuce.

Line 137: describe the appropriate air inlet

In the Results and Discussion section (lines 248-267), move to the Materials and Methods section. There is no information on fertilizer producers.

There is also no information on whether plant protection against pathogens (fungicides, insecticides) was used in lettuce cultivation.

In the Results and Discussions section, the description of the results obtained and the discussion of the available literature sources is poor.

In Conclusions, the sentences (lines 355-358) should be removed because these are not conclusions.

It cannot be said that leafy vegetable crops have been tested if only one species has been tested.

The bibliography should be corrected by the editorial requirements of Agriculture.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,
Thank you for your analysis. We change some parts of the manuscript to make it clearer and more understandable. The answers to your questions and comments are given in the attached file.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

- Keywords should not be repeated in the title. To replace.

- The first two paragraphs of Results should be moved to Material Methods.

- No need to add photo of lettuce sowing. To remove.

- How much light is used in this lighting system? Quote details.

- Who was this graphical interface developed by? Can everyone have access to it?

- Remove lines from within all graphics.

- Didn't you test the system with another crop besides lettuce?

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,
Thank you for your analysis. We change some parts of the manuscript to make it clearer and more understandable. The answers to your questions and comments are given in the attached file.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 3 Report

The manuscript assesses the design of а small-scale hydroponic system for indoor sustainable farming of leafy vegetables. In my opinion, there are several issues to be addressed before the ms could be considered for publication. In the title, I can’t understand the use of ‘sustainable’ and how is connected to the findings of this study. The introduction is poor, and lacks references, with critical points to be based on the author’s statement. Lines 56-58 are a major reason that explains the need for the study but is not supported by any data from the literature. Moreover, on a revised ms also the floating system should be considered for comparison. Extra information is required for Kratky hydroponic method, including description, advantages-disadvantages etc. How the success of such a system was evaluated? What was the control? Only controlling some parameters with IoT is not enough. Cost-benefit analysis, yield, and duration of the production cycle data are required. I suggest the authors rewrite the ms with clarification if the topic is for an agricultural journal or for a technician journal eg. Automation.

Level of English is average.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,
Thank you for your analysis. We change some parts of the manuscript to make it clearer and more understandable. The answers to your questions and comments are given in the attached file.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 4 Report

This manuscript provides a description of an indoors vertical plant production system for small or medium-scale operations which also incorporates IoT technology. The authors also report results from a test involving the germination of lettuce seeds. The introduction is quite informative about indoors plant production systems in hydroponics. The authors acknowledged the existence of similar systems but they did not compare them with their own construction. The innovation of their system must be clearly stated and described. L118-121 is not very clear to me. They must describe what they changed compared to the other systems because it seems as a repetition of other systems. This information must be included in the abstract, objectives, and conclusions’ sections.

Specific comments are following:

L58. You may start this sentence with “Gumisiriza et al. [6] suggests …”. The same applies for L75, L81, and elsewhere.

L173. Include information (manufacturer, city, country etc.) of the NIDO ONE unit.

L177. Include information for SECRET JARDIN and all the other equipment you used. For example L187-193 and many others.

L250. Name of the variety?

L253-256. pH- and pH+ mean decreased/increased pH?          

L260. Cake?

L246-280. I believe that this part belongs to the Materials and Methods’ section.

L324. Please explain this abrupt increase of EC at 15.30 time in Figure 9.

Figures 6-11 should be placed after their respective referral/discussion in the text. I suggest that each Figure is moved forward by one paragraph.

The manuscript needs moderate revision of the English language.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,
Thank you for your analysis. We change some parts of the manuscript to make it clearer and more understandable. The answers to your questions and comments are given in the attached file.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

Everything's all right.

Reviewer 2 Report

The authors made the suggested corrections.

Reviewer 3 Report

I appreciate the author's effort and work to improve the manuscript's overall structure. I have no further comments or suggestions 

Minor editing is needed.

Reviewer 4 Report

The authors addressed my comments and the manuscript was improved. Therefore, I suggest its publication to Agriculture. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to assess the manuscript.

Minor English corrections are needed.