Effects of Sugarcane Leaf Return and Fertilizer Reduction on Maize Growth, Yield and Soil Properties in Red Soil

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

This paper shows a study about sugarcane leaf return (SLR) and fertilizer reduction (FR) on maize growth, yield component and yield, and soil properties. The overall quality of this paper is low, in terms of both science and writing.

 

1.     The science question is unclear. It is not clearly stated what are the major contributions of this study to the research field.

2.     As the core of this paper, Sugarcane Leaf Return is not adequately introduced. Why is this specific stuff needs investigation? How could it be helpful to crops? What are the chemical nutrients that Sugarcane Leaf Return can bring? Those are the start points of your study which need to be clearly addressed.

3.     The Introduction is poorly written. The authors should provide a concise and high-level review of past studies and indicate the remaining research gaps.

4.     The authors specifically indicated Red Soil in title, but I don’t see anything special with red soil in the manuscript.

5.     The authors used the same barplot throughout the paper, which is really weak in presenting your results and redundant. Please consider using more diverse and vivid figures.

6.     In the barplot, it is more informative to show the changes in each stage than the cumulative results.

7.     The discussion is unnecessarily long. Many less relevant components can be removed.

8.     What do a, b, c … mean in your figures and tables?

9.     Figure 2 and the table below are supposed to show stalk diameter, but the figure is still planting height. Please be serious when submitting your paper to a journal!

10.  Why is Table 1 after all other tables? Please change the order.

Author Response

Response to Reviewer#1

Thank your valuable and constructive suggestion. We have also attended to the formatting and language of the manuscript according to your suggestions. Please note that reviewer comments are shown in bold type and our response in plain type with blue color. We would be willing to make further changes if you felt them necessary and would be grateful for your advice on the matter.

 

1. The science question is unclear. It is not clearly stated what are the major contributions of this study to the research field.

Response: We appreciate it very much for this good and constructive suggestion and we have revised the manuscript according to your ideas. The word on the major contributions of this study to the research field had added to the manuscript，as showed in following figure:

 

2. As the core of this paper, Sugarcane Leaf Return is not adequately introduced. Why is this specific stuff needs investigation? How could it be helpful to crops? What are the chemical nutrients that Sugarcane Leaf Return can bring? Those are the start points of your study which need to be clearly addressed.

Response: We appreciate it very much for this good and constructive suggestion, and we have done it according to your suggestions. Partial Content on the major contributions of the study to the research in introduction section was cut, as the different of author’s understanding. We would add the deleted contents and the added words were labeled by the red color (word review mode). 

 

3. The Introduction is poorly written. The authors should provide a concise and high-level review of past studies and indicate the remaining research gaps.

Response: We appreciate it very much for this good suggestion. We had introduced the research progress and existing problems on sugarcane leaf return and fertilizer reduction in practice., and the contents of the related literature were summarized and concluded. As the limitation of the paper length and the need of simplify the paper, the concrete content of the papers was not presented description in detail. At the end of introduction ,we had point out the research direction on sugarcane leaf return and fertilizer reduction which indicated the remaining research gaps.

 

 

 

 

 

4. The authors specifically indicated Red Soil in title, but I don’t see anything special with red soil in the manuscript.

Response: Red soil is the main soil type in Guangxi, China. The most sugarcane and other staple crops in Guangxi are planted in subtropical red soil region. The related comments and importance was in the third paragraph of Introduction.

 

 

5. The authors used the same barplot throughout the paper, which is really weak in presenting your results and redundant. Please consider using more diverse and vivid figures.

Response: We mostly used barplot style throughout the paper, however, we tried to use the other graphical type, such as (line or scatter diagram). For example, we use line diagram type as follow:

 

 

 

 

 

5. In the barplot, it is more informative to show the changes in each stage than the cumulative results.

Response: In the process of writing manuscript, we tried to analysis and compare the difference of different experimental treatments’ test indexes. Because 5 test indexes of maize growth and 6 observation time point, 9 test indexes of soil properties and 7 observation time point, if the difference of 9 treatment combinations at each stage was compared and analyzed, it would increase the paper length significantly. At the same time, we found the changes of the lots of comparison results at each time could not explain the experimental design and aim. Before submit the manuscript, the change in each stage was deleted. Meanwhile, we had analyzed the difference of treatment at a typical time to explain the change patterns between treatments.

 

 

7. The discussion is unnecessarily long. Many less relevant components can be removed.

Response: We appreciate it very much for this good suggestion, and we have removed the unnecessarily contents in discussion section according to your ideas.

 

 

8. What do a, b, c … mean in your figures and tables?

Response: We noted your suggestion. The mean of a, b,c was explained below figure 1.

 

 

9. Figure 2 and the table below are supposed to show stalk diameter, but the figure is still planting height. Please be serious when submitting your paper to a journal!

Response: We are very sorry for our careless mistake and it was rectified in Figure 2.

10. Why is Table 1 after all other tables? Please change the order.

Response: We are very sorry for our careless mistake and it was rectified at table sequence. We had revised the table sequence.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

The topic of the research and the experiment conducted is in line with the theme of Plants magazine. The results of this research are of great practical importance to Maize Growth producers , with Good Agricultural Practice. The work is very extensive and contains many results, which makes it valuable. However, the large amount of content makes the work unreadable especially the information on the graphs is not very clear, so I suggest the authors to improve them.
The abstract does not raise major objections. The included content informs about the experiment conducted and what results were obtained. However, I suggest supplementing it with information on what years and where the experiment was conducted.
Introduction:
The introduction correctly states the problem of the work
Discussion
Discussion and does not raise major objections. The results are complete, correctly described. Conclusions
The conclusions are correctly formulated.
Literature
The literature is up-to-date and well selected, however, throughout the literature list, one can notice the inconsistency of the notation with the editorial guidelines. Please correct this state of affairs.

Author Response

Dear editor and reviewer,

Manuscript ID: plants-2190007,the manuscript title was“Effects of Sugarcane Leaf Return and Fertilizer Reduction on Maize Growth, Yield, and Soil Properties in Red Soil”.Thanks very much for taking your time to review this manuscript. I really appreciate all your comments and suggestions. These comments are very helpful to improve the quality of our manuscript. We have carefully revised the manuscript, further clarity the logic of writing for improving the quality of manuscript. Words in red color are the changes we have made in the manuscript. English language has been corrected by MedSci Corporation as shown the following certificate of English editing:

 

 

Now we response the reviewer’s comments with a point-to-point and highlight the changes in revised manuscript. Full details of the files are listed. We sincerely hope that your find our responses and modifications satisfactory and the manuscript is now acceptable for publication.

Response to Reviewer#2

Thank your valuable and constructive suggestion. We have also attended to the formatting and language of the manuscript according to your suggestions. Please note that reviewer comments are shown in bold type and our response in plain type. We would be willing to make further changes if you felt them necessary and would be grateful for your advice on the matter.

1. The topic of the research and the experiment conducted is in line with the theme of Plants magazine. The results of this research are of great practical importance to Maize Growth producers , with Good Agricultural Practice. The work is very extensive and contains many results, which makes it valuable. However, the large amount of content makes the work unreadable especially the information on the graphs is not very clear, so I suggest the authors to improve them.

Response: Thank your constructive evaluation. We had cut some content of the manuscript for readable and clear.

2.The abstract does not raise major objections. The included content informs about the experiment conducted and what results were obtained. However, I suggest supplementing it with information on what years and where the experiment was conducted.

Response: Because the submission manuscript on word template of plants, Materials and Methods of the paper was placed at the back of manuscript. The information on test time and place was introduced in mater rial and method.

 

 

3.Introduction:

The introduction correctly states the problem of the work

Discussion

Discussion and does not raise major objections. The results are complete, correctly described. Conclusions

The conclusions are correctly formulated.

Literature

The literature is up-to-date and well selected, however, throughout the literature list, one can notice the inconsistency of the notation with the editorial guidelines. Please correct this state of affairs.

Response: Thank you for your approval and valuable suggestions. The discussion of the manuscript had been cut and simplified.

 

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 3 Report

The manuscript entitled Effects of Sugarcane Leaf Return and Fertilizer Reduction on Maize Growth, Yield, and Soil Properties in Red Soil needs revision to improve its quality. Improve text, figures and tables. English is weak and sentences are very large everywhere.

 

Check the PDF file attached for more comments

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Dear editor and reviewer,

Manuscript ID: plants-2190007,the manuscript title was“Effects of Sugarcane Leaf Return and Fertilizer Reduction on Maize Growth, Yield, and Soil Properties in Red Soil”.Thanks very much for taking your time to review this manuscript. I really appreciate all your comments and suggestions. These comments are very helpful to improve the quality of our manuscript. We have carefully revised the manuscript, further clarity the logic of writing for improving the quality of manuscript. Words in red color are the changes we have made in the manuscript. English language has been corrected by MedSci Corporation as shown the following certificate of English editing:

 

 

Now we response the reviewer’s comments with a point-to-point and highlight the changes in revised manuscript. Full details of the files are listed. We sincerely hope that your find our responses and modifications satisfactory and the manuscript is now acceptable for publication.

Response to Reviewer#3

The manuscript entitled Effects of Sugarcane Leaf Return and Fertilizer Reduction on Maize Growth, Yield, and Soil Properties in Red Soil needs revision to improve its quality. Improve text, figures and tables. English is weak and sentences are very large everywhere.

Response: Thank your valuable and constructive suggestion, We have attended to the formatting and language of the manuscript according to your suggestions. Please note that reviewer comments are shown in bold type and our response in plain type. English language has been corrected by MedSci Corporation as shown the following certificate of English editing (see below).

 

 

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

accept

Author Response

Thank you for your comments. We have checked English language and style.

Reviewer 3 Report

The manuscript is accepted better the authors check the manuscript for minor errors if any

Author Response

Thank you for your comments. We have checked English language and style as well as  minor errors.