Organic Fertilizer Optimization for Enhanced Growth and Nutrient Uptake in Bell Pepper Transplants (Capsicum annuum L.)

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The subject of the paper is very important. The experriment is well arranged with many measurements and all experimental factors and results are correctly and deeply explained.

The results are presented graphically and all are very clear. The Literature part contains many  appropriately selected papers, according to the paper subjects.

It is advisabele to implement short Summary at the end of Disscussion part. 

Paper is worth to publishing with minor corrections 

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Please see the attached file.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

In the present manuscript, the author addresses comprehensive sustainable nutrient management in vegetable production, like bell pepper (Capsicum annuum L.). The authors explored the impact of different organic fertilizer management on the growth and nutrient absorption of bell pepper seedlings, offering valuable insights for environmentally friendly horticultural practices. The experimental design is scientifically appropriate, and the findings are generally well-documented. However, some grammatical errors and formatting adjustments are required. The following points should be considered:

 Abstract:

The author writes the abstract based on their obtained findings.

 Introduction:

The author addresses the research gap with proper justification.

 Materials and Methods:

Line 298: Where is the information about K fertilizer, which is very essential for proper growth and development? Without its combination effect, it is not possible to conclude the N and P fertilizer effects properly.

 Results

Line 363: As Drammatic contains higher N and considerable P, why does it yield the lowest canopy in different DAS?

Line 375 and Figure 5: Similarly, why shoot biomass was drastically reduced in Drammatic? It is the opposite of the general statement of higher N,P, and K, which increases the biomass (root and shoot).

 Discussion:

The author needs to discuss only the key findings with relevant findings. The readers will not be interested in reading a long, ambiguous story.

Conclusion:

The author needs to write the major findings in a separate section as ‘Conclusion’.

 References:

The author needs to check the reference lists of those that are cited in the text. All the titles and other contents should be unique to the journal format.

Author Response

Please see the attached PDF file for our responses. thanks

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The manuscript presents an interesting and relevant study on optimising bell pepper transplant production under different fertiliser regimes and nitrogen rates. The experimental design is generally appropriate, and the dataset appears solid. However, several important issues need to be addressed before the manuscript can be considered for publication:

1. Lack of clear hypotheses. The Introduction outlines the objectives, but explicit research hypotheses are missing. Without well-defined hypotheses, the Discussion becomes overly broad and somewhat unfocused. Clearly stating testable hypotheses at the end of the Introduction would help guide the reader and provide a logical framework for the results and their interpretation.

2. Materials and Methods. The section could be shortened by presenting a concise table summarising all treatments, fertiliser rates, and the exact number of plants per treatment. This would also help streamline the text and make the experimental design more accessible to readers. In this form, is not clear how many plants were exactly in each treatment. Statistical analysis - the choice of regression is acceptable for analysing dose - response relationships, but confidence intervals are not reported anywhere in the manuscript, neither for regression models nor for treatment means. This omission limits the interpretability of the results, since CI would provide a clearer picture of the precision and reliability of the estimates. Including these measures is essential to assess the robustness of the findings. Furthermore, given the multivariate nature of the dataset, methods such as Partial Least Squares Discriminant Analysis (PLS-DA) could provide deeper insights into how fertilizer type and nitrogen rate jointly affect plant traits. In addition, since multiple measurements were collected over the growth cycle, a repeated measures ANOVA or mixed model would have been more suitable to account for temporal correlations. The authors should at least justify why these methods were not applied.

3. Discussion and Conclusions. The Discussion is too long and contains substantial repetition. More importantly, the manuscript currently lacks a Conclusions section. Conclusions should be concise, directly address the hypotheses, and provide clear take-home messages for researchers and practitioners. At present, the manuscript ends without a closure or aim, which weakens its impact.

4. References – The reference list requires thorough editing to ensure compliance with journal style. In several places, formatting inconsistencies are evident, and some references appear incomplete. Careful revision is needed.

5. The manuscript currently presents a very large number of results, some of which may not be directly relevant to the main research questions. The authors should explicitly define their working hypotheses and then present and discuss primarily those results that are necessary to test them. Other measurements and analyses, while valuable, could be moved to supplementary material. This restructuring would also help shorten the Results and Discussion sections, which are currently too long, and would make the conclusions clear.

Overall recommendation: The study is potentially valuable and the dataset merits publication, but the manuscript requires substantial revision to

• formulate clear hypotheses
• strengthen and justify the statistical approach
• shorten and focus the Discussion,
• add a structured Conclusions section
• revise the references for accuracy and consistency. 

Author Response

Please see the attached PDF file for our responses. thanks.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

I appreciate the authors’ efforts in revising the manuscript and for providing detailed responses to comments. The quality of the manuscript has improved, particularly through the addition of explicit hypotheses, restructuring of the Discussion, and inclusion of a Conclusions section. Nevertheless, several issues remain that should be further addressed before the manuscript can be considered for publication:

1. Statistical analysis
   The authors state that more advanced methods (PLS-DA, mixed models) could not be performed due to lack of access to SAS OnDemand. While I understand the limitation, a technical constraint alone is not a sufficient justification. The authors should ideally demonstrate the robustness of their results (e.g., through confidence intervals). Otherwise, the conclusions remain insufficiently supported.  If the raw data are no longer available for such calculations, I recommend at least presenting standard errors (SE) or standard deviations (SD) alongside means. This would substantially improve the transparency and interpretability of the results, if more advanced statistical approaches cannot be implemented at this stage.

2. Conclusions
   The newly added Conclusion should be more explicitly linked to the hypotheses and provide clear take-home messages for researchers and practitioners. At present, the conclusion is still rather general.

Author Response

thanks again for your valuable comments. Please see the attached for detailed responses.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf