Possibility of Vegetable Soybean Cultivation in North Europe

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Dear authors,

it has been a plesure to read about Possibility of vegetable soybean cultivation in North Europe, since they are commonly consumed in Asia, but are increasingly present in the rest of the world.

Please pay attention about

 2,7]). Clinical

L 50 – referred

L 150 - Bradyrhizobium japonicum bacterium – do you have any commercial name of the preparation to put in the brakets ?

L 33 – 235  and 261 - 263– It is better to put the table of model – freedom degrees, square means and means with their significance

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

Manuscript title: Possibility of vegetable soybean cultivation in North Europe   

Manuscript id: horticulturae-1775211

Authors:  Zeipiņa  et al.

The manuscript regarding the topic and results presented is of interest to plant scientific community and revisions based on the comments below are recommended before considering for publication.

Major comments

·       In the abstract, it would be better to have a sentence as future perspective.

·       The unit / abbreviation is not mention before, consider define the abbreviation when mentioned for the first time…. Please check throughout the manuscript to define the abbreviations.

·       Lake of scientific literature to support the statements and finings throughout the manuscript…... I have made some suggestions for that and more need it….

·       Line 91-94, the aim or hypothesis of the study is clear, however the approach is missing …. I am not sure you need to mention locations of the study here, you can mention in MM section-  as you already have…

·       More information needed for ALL TABLE captions and define the abbreviation and units that used. And adjust the significant figures for the table and manuscript.

·       Two reference stye used, (number superscript and number between brackets), consider arranging them to one format….

·       I have a major concern about the results and discussion section. The authors describe results and compare the results with previous studies, however, insight mechanisms are still not sufficient.

·       This section is repeating information already presented and explaining things in an unnecessarily complicate way. The quality of the manuscript would benefit from the whole section being condensed.

Minor comments:

Abstract

The unit / abbreviation is not mention before, consider define the abbreviation when mentioned for the first time.

Line 10: why ‘’soya’’?  In the previous sentence and following sentence you have used ‘’soybean’’? are they different? If not using two terms confuse the readers!

Line 13: I believe its too early to use conclude here, maybe you can replace it with prove, show, demonstrate…..

Introduction:

Line 25: ‘’ also called edamame’’ is repetitive of the abstract in line 8, this is redundant of the info

Line 42-44: A reference needed here.

Line 49-50: consider using this reference: https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.est.1c01477

Line 66-69: A complicated sentence, please revise and check grammar

Line 66-74: A reference needed here.

In the introduction and elsewhere in the manuscript, you have used ‘’ vegetable soy’’ and ‘’soybean’’, please consider defining the two terms

Line 82-84: consider using this reference:

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.still.2017.01.001

or

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.iswcr.2017.08.001

In MM section

Literature references are missing for all sub-section. It would be better to cite the references that the procedure adapted.

Line 99: please mention all seasons here!

Line 99-106: A complicated sentence, please revise and check grammar

Line 109: Replace 2017 with ‘’ in 2017,’’

Line 111:  Put comma after 2019. Please consider check the manuscript and correct all the position for that, its grammatically not correct

Line 127-134: A complicated sentence, please revise and check grammar

Figure 1: It is not clear how these long-term data calculated! Please consider elaborate more on this somewhere in the MM section or caption of the figure…. The same for Figure 2.

R&D section

These sections are repeating information already presented and explaining things in an unnecessarily complicate way. The quality of the manuscript would benefit from the whole section being condensed: Line 248-258, Line 272- 304,

Figure 3, 4 and 5. how the comparing made between the treatments, and assigning the letter for statistical difference is confusing. For example, Figure 5: How you can have abc, ab, d, a, ab, acd, cd? Please elaborate more, or consider change the format.

Please consider the same comment for Table 4.

Line 331-335: This sentence is repetitive of what already said in result section, please consider either delete or rephrase.

Line 388-395: I am not sure whether is correct t compare soybean with rice? Are they are from different families? I would suggest to find data from soybean, if not possible from other legumes…

Line 435-437: This statement is belonged to conclusion section. Please consider moving it.

Conclusion

I believe there are other a lot nice conclusions could be made from this study…. And the future perspectives for following research highly crucial here

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

In this study, the authors cultivated vegetable soybean in Latvia and Norway, and they evaluated the yield in different varieties and growing methods. I think that the topic is too specific to publish in Horticulturae and the title is not informative for the readers, but it might be acceptable after improvement of the manuscript.

1)   There is no legend of all figures, so it is difficult to understand. Please define I, II, III of X-axis in Figs. 1 and 2. In addition, explain ‘long term’ in the figure legend, not in the main text. 

2)   How were precipitation and temperature recorded? Please explain that in the Materials and Methods section. If the authors made the graphs based on any database, please cite the original information.

3)   Figs. 3-5 can be combined. It would be easy to compare any differences between years.

4)   L.248 similar trends as in 2017, L.261 similar tendencies as both previous years. What is similar? How similar? These graphs showed the quite different patterns.

5)   Table 4 What is ‘Pods per plant’? Please define it. ‘pc’ is percentage? If it is true, ‘%’ should be used here. If not, please define it in the caption. In the Materials and Methods section, Duncan’s test was not described?

6)   Figure 6. In the pre-mulching of 14.05.2018 and no mulching of 23.05.2018, the marketable yield was slightly higher than total yield. I am confused by it. What means total yield?

Minor comments

1)   L.44 FAO should be spelled out in the first word.

2)   L.114 HTC should be spelled out. Not in L.211.

3)   Figure 2. The graphs should have the same width. It is different between 2018 and 2019.

4)   L.145-146 by transplanting the transplants -> by transplanting the plants?

5)   L.181 6.4m2, the index should be written in superscript letters.

6)   L.201 DDG per -> GDD per?

7)   L.201 Tbase, ‘base’ should be written in superscript letters.

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

I recommend the manuscript to be published!

Reviewer 3 Report

The authors responded all my questions and I do not have any comments this time.