Zeolite in Vineyard: Innovative Agriculture Management Against Drought Stress
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsAfter reading the manuscript "Zeolite in a Vineyard: Innovative Agriculture Management," I would like to report the following: The use of zeolite in vineyard soils is an interesting approach to mitigating water stress and, consequently, better adapting to the consequences of climate change.
Overall, the article presents relevant information, is well-written and the conclusions are supported by the data. Of particular interest are the agronomic consequences resulting from measurements of chlorophyll, stomatal conductance, water stem potential, and leaf temperature. The results provided on certain metabolites that appear to be related to water stress are also interesting.
From my point of view, the article is almost ready for publication, especially if there are no limitations on the length of the manuscript, since it is almost 30 pages long. Below, I will make some suggestions for improving it and also for shortening it without suffering a significant loss of information and quality.
Lines 58 to 67: It would be interesting to report at some point in the manuscript whether the Sangiovese variety exhibits isohydric or anisohydric behavior.
Line 152: It would be interesting to indicate whether the 775P rootstock is deep-rooting and whether the zeolite will be placed in the zone of maximum root density.
Line 155: Some more information about the soil would be helpful regarding uniformity, horizons, depth, water retention properties, etc.
Line 161: It would be interesting to provide a graphical diagram explaining the application of the zeolite.
Line 253: Separate "the cooling."
Line 288: In relation to Figures 3 and 4, it would be better to use a date such as July 28 to refer to the points instead of DOY209, which is not easy to see in the graph.
Line 291: The differences between the various treatments are visible in the graphs and are also subject to analysis of variance, so it would be sufficient to indicate whether significant differences appear. It doesn't seem the most accurate way to express the differences in percentage variations. These percentages are repeated in the comments on Figures 3, 4, 5, and 6.
Line 321: In this section of the results for phenolic compounds in leaves, six very extensive tables are provided for the 12 compounds at different times during the growing season. The information is relevant but takes up a lot of space and makes interpretation tedious. Perhaps it would be sufficient to include a single table for the most interesting time, and provide the other five as supplementary material outside the scope of the publication. From my point of view, the explanation that appears from lines 380 to 400 would be sufficient, along with a table.
Line 401: From my point of view, the chromatograms do not provide relevant information.
Line 423: The graph in Figure 8 could be better explained. Identify the variables most correlated with the appearance of the two components of the graph, the percentage of explained variance, the groups generated, and their significance.
Line 424: This paragraph up to line 430 and the Figures 9a and 9b do not provide relevant information.
Line 450: From this line to line 473, it provides interesting information, but from my point of view, it is speculative.
Line 578: It seems to be suggested as a conclusion that zeolite application can replace irrigation. Perhaps it would be worthwhile to be cautious in this statement.
Especially considering the particular climate of the region studied, which is not particularly stressful from a water perspective compared to other regions, and the limited soil study that accompanies it, since the depth of soil structure or the possible discontinuity of the different horizons is not reported. This suggestion that an application of approximately 5,000 kilos per hectare of zeolite could replace an irrigation system, which is always expensive and requires careful design, with the same results on plant water stress, may be misleading.
Author Response
Dear Reviewer, thank you for your comments and suggestions. Thank you for reviewing the manuscript. Please, see the attached file.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsThe tables of Annova could be deleted and I suggest to the Author to concentrat on the parameters that was signicantly affected and indicate in the figures of the parameters the impact of zeolite and irrigation.
You have contrasted years of experiment : in one most of the rain was concentrated in the period of April-June and in the other one the rain was mostly contrated in July September. It will nice to evaluate the impact ogf your treatments on the the parameters measured.
one last remarque, why you did not mentione the impact of your treatment on the yield of the crop in order tohelp the farmers if adding zeolite could reduce the impact of drought
Comments for author File: Comments.pdf
Author Response
Dear Reviewer,
thank you for your comments and suggestions. Thank you for reviewing the manuscript.
Please, see the attached file.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 3 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsPlease see the attachment.
Comments for author File: Comments.pdf
Author Response
Dear Reviewer,
thank you for your comments and suggestions. Thank you for reviewing the manuscript.
Please, see the attached file.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 3 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsAccept in present form.
