Review Reports

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The authors explored the effect of compound additives on the nutritional composition, fermentation quality and bacterial community of high-moisture alfalfa silage, which falls into the scope of this journal. However, the authos must deal with the major comments as follows before further considering acceptance.

There are a few low-level problems that appear for many times in the text and need to be treated carefully and seriously. First, "P" should be lowercase and italic, and should be shown as "p < 0.05". Second, One blank should be inserted between two words, such as L10 (there no blank between "Abstract:" and "The"); also such as L76 (there no blank between "18.00" and "mg/kg"). Third, Latin characters in the text or in the reference list must be italic, such as L481 (Medicago sativa). The rest of comments in detail are as follows. Last, the authos must impove the language quality of this manuscript.

 

L1-3, as to the title, I suggest using "Effect of compound additives on the nutritional composition, fermentation quality and bacterial community of high-moisture alfalfa silage"

L11, only subject to

L12， raises cost of labor, economy and time, freshly

L13, lactic acid bacteria (LAB)

L14, "silenced" ???

L15-16, There were four groups: control (CK), 0.01 g/kg LAB plus 2% sugar (S), 0.01 g/kg LAB plus 5% corn flour (C5) and  0.01 g/kg LAB plus 5% corn flour (C10); please keep in accordance between "corn flour" and "maize flour"

L17-24, there is no need to use the abbreviations for the phrases that appear less than three time in the text, namely do not use the abbreviations (ADF, NH₃-N, AA, CP, NDF); ammonia nitrogen

L31, There are two common approaches of utilizing alfalfa in animal husbandry production, namely hay preparation and ensiling. However, 

L32, Ensiling is

L36, produce organic acids from

L40, In contrast, ensiling saves

L54-55, deficiencies caused by ensiling alfalfa alone

L84, and bacterial community of alfalfa 

L86-87, how do you mix corn flour and fresh alfalfa uniformly ? please describe it in detail in this section

L93, acids

L94, Twenty grams of silage was placed into a beaker with 180 mL

L117-118, this primer words "ITS1F_ITS2R" were used for determining fungal community

L141, Chemical composition and bacterial community of fresh alfalfa and corn flour

L142-143, I suggest using the abbreviations in Table 1, except "crude ash"

L177, CK rather that control

L219, only "Clostridium_sensu" should be italic for Clostridium_sensu_stricto_12

L249, NH₃-N

L263， yeasts and Enterobacteriaceae

L274, using NDF and ADF, rather than crude fiber

L294, LAB epiphytic on

L408, undesirable bacteria

 

 

 

The quality of english language was low and needs to be improved extensively.

Author Response

Please see the attachment

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

The manuscripts evaluated the effect of additives on silage quality and microbial diversity of high moisture alfalfa. The results will provide a theoretical basis for  an efficient silage processing system.

 

1.     What is mean “compound additives”? or complex additive? Or composite additive?

2.     The addition of LAB is based on “g/kg” not “cfu”?

3.     Rephrased L32-33

4.     L51 Maize is rich in starch rather than wsc.

5.     L82-91 Number of viable lactic acid bacteria per kg?

6.     Please provide the detailed information about statistical analysis

7.     Explain the abbreviation in each table.

8.     Delete Figure 2

 

9.     There are only 3 replicates in microbial communities, which is difference to the description in M%&M, Why?

English language should be improved.

Author Response

Please see the attachment

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

p. 1, line 14: ….then silenced directly,….please rephrase

p. 1, line 14: show consistency in use of terms; please use in the article corn flour or maize flour; also for corn or maize meal (lines 51, 54)

p. 1, line 19: Insert spp after Lactobacillus

p. 1, line 19: Insert genera in front of Weissella, Clostridium_sensu_stricto_12 19 and Pantoea were….

p. 1, line 23: Insert again spp after Lactobacillus…… please correct in the entire manuscript

p. 1, line 42: please correct the sentence: … However, harmful bacteria such as Clostridium and Enterobacteriaceae proliferate when silage is prepared at high moisture levels, and Clostridium not only competes with LAB for fermentation substrate, but also decomposes and utilizes protein, metabolizing it to ammonia and biogenic amines [1]. If the proliferation of Clostridium cannot be

-  Enterobacteriaceae  - is at family level in taxonomy

- Clostridium is a genus and you have to use spp after his name……please correct in the entire manuscript (e.g. line 47)

p. 2, line 51: capitalize letter m from maize meal

p. 3, line 94: please rephrase (past tense) Put 20g of silage into a beaker, add 180ml of deionized water and seal it using a sealing film.

p. 3, line 126: explain QC abbreviation from …..QC of the raw sequenced sequences using

p. 4, line 145: Figure 1 all genera form the figure have to be italicized and after each genus please insert spp

p. 5, line 183: explain OTUs abbreviation from … were 79 OTUs in common among the four treatments,

p. 8, line 223: Figure 4 all genera form the figure have to be italicized and after each genus please insert spp

p. 8, line 230: Figure 5A is not fully explicit/ can create confusion. Please improve! All genera form the figure have to be italicized and after each genus please insert spp . Please correct all figures.

 

p. 10, line 281: please italicize Bacillus and Penicillium

 

Small correction have to be done

 

Author Response

Please see the attachment

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

No comments.

Reviewer 2 Report

The Manuscript was improved in the revision, it is acceptable now.

The English language should be improved by native English speaker.