Evaluation of Removed and Recycled Mineral Nutrients in Italian Commercial Persimmon Orchards
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
The paper is original providing reference for the future study on the perssimone tree. The manuscript is well-written, the experimental design is appropriete. However the statistical analysis is not well-descriped, the litter to show the significance is absent in all figures and tables. The reference are mostly old, more recent are required. The attached pdf has more comments that should be considerd before accepting this manuscript for publication.
Comments for author File: 
Comments.pdf
Author Response
Reviewer#1
We would like to thank you for the time you spent to evaluate our manuscript critically and for providing us valuable and constructive feedbacks. We went through the comments and we did our best to clarify and improve the quality level of the article. We used the “Track changes” in Word to indicate the revisions.
Below our answers to the points you raised.
Row 31: most of the references are old, more recent ref will be better focus on the past 10 years.
We agree; however, the scientific literature lacks specific studies on persimmon fertilization, especially in Italian environmental conditions. We deliberately cited studies from 10-15 years ago to underline how the fertilization of this crop is still based on scientific knowledge acquired in the past for other fruit species.
Row 39. Add this recent ref: Ahmed et al., 2022. Ahmed ZF, Kaur N, Hassan FE. Ornamental Date Palm and Sidr Trees: Fruit Elements Composition and Concerns Regarding Consumption. International Journal of Fruit Science. 2022 Dec 31;22(1):17-34.
and
Row 268. Add this ref: Ahmed, Z.F.R.; Alnuaimi, A.K.H.; Askri, A.; Tzortzakis, N. Evaluation of Lettuce (Lactuca sativa L.) Production under Hydroponic System: Nutrient Solution Derived from Fish Waste vs. Inorganic Nutrient Solution. Horticulturae 2021, 7, 292. https://doi.org/10.3390/horticulturae7090292
Both references were added
Row 60 and 63-64: Is it seven or 10?
We confirm that the farms involved in the study were seven, while the orchards were ten; three farms, in fact, included both the "Kaki Tipo" and "Rojo Brillante" cultivars. We specified
Row 110: in the attached pdf it’s suggested to remove "nutrients concentration and", a suggestion that we do not understand since the values reported in Tables 1-2 and in Figure 2 refer to leaf nutrients concentration.
Comment of Reviewer#1 to Figure 1: “Add the letter of statistical analysis.
Comment of Reviewer#1 to Table 1: “The statistical analysis letters need to be added here and in all table and figures”
Comment of Reviewer#1 to Table 3: “The significance differences is clear, however the statistical letter should be added. Same for all figurer and tables”
The aim of our study was not to compare the two cultivars but mainly to assess the nutrient requirements of the two main varieties of persimmon grown in Emilia-Romagna Region. Therefore, we considered irrelevant to report the analysis of variance between cultivars.
Row 327: we deleted the sentence as suggested “values in line with those reported in the Integrated Crop Management guidelines of the Region [14]”.
Row 334: “for what?”
We tried to explain it better
Best Regards
Reviewer 2 Report
Dear Authors,
The subject of the study is interesting and topical, with high scientific and practical importance.
The introduction is presented correctly, in accordance with the subject. Numerous scientific articles, in concordance to the topic of the study, were consulted.
Methodology of the study was clearly presented, and appropriate to the proposed objectives.
The obtained results are important and have been analyzed and interpreted correctly, in accordance with the current methodology.
The discussions are appropriate, in the context of the results, and was conducted compared to other studies in the field.
The scientific literature, to which the reporting was made, is recent and representative in the field.
Some suggestions and corrections were made in the article.
The following aspects are brought to the attention of the authors.
1.
Italic Font style for species name
e.g.
"D. kaki" instead of “D. kaki”
“D. lotus” instead of “D. lotus”
2.
References
According to Instructions for Authors and Microsoft Word template, Horticulturae journal,
“Author 1, A.B.; Author 2, C.D. Title of the article. Abbreviated Journal Name Year, Volume, page range.”
“Include the digital object identifier (DOI) for all references where available.”
Volume
e.g.
"28" instead of "28"
Italic Font style
Please check and correct, if necessary.
Comments for author File: Comments.pdf
Author Response
We would like to thank you for the time you spent to evaluate our manuscript critically and for providing us valuable and constructive feedbacks. We went through the comments and we did our best to clarify and improve the quality level of the article. We used the “Track changes” in Word to indicate the revisions.
Below our answers to the points you raised.
- Row 63: “central and south-eastern” was corrected in “Central and South-Eastern”
- Row 224: we removed the comma at the end of phrase “was higher than that removed”
- Row 357: "28" instead of "28"; done.
- Row 359: "721"; done.
- Row 363-364: "D. kaki" and “D. lotus”; we corrected the species name with the Italic font style.
- References:
- we corrected the style of number of volume (with Italic Font) of references from scientific journals;
- we corrected the style of species name in references [5] using Italic Font.
- DOI: we added the DOI for the reference n. 22, while for n. 17, 23, 24 and 28 the DOI link is not available.
Reviewer 3 Report
1. Fig 1 - include DW on the verical axis and caption
2. Fig 2 - Vertical axis expand N to Nitrogen and caption
3. When leaf analysis levels are used to add nutrients to soil or leaf, which levels summer or winter should be used? explain in text
4. Comment on future research - determine which month when all leaf nutrients are stable. eg for olive summer data is used to guide nutrient applications,
Author Response
We would like to thank you for the time you spent to evaluate our manuscript critically and for providing us valuable and constructive feedbacks. We went through the comments and we did our best to clarify and improve the quality level of the article. We used the “Track changes” in Word to indicate the revisions.
Below our answers to the points you raised.
Comments/suggestions of reviewer and authors' responses.
- 1 – include DW on the vertical axis and caption
- 2 – Vertical axis expanded N to Nitrogen and caption
Done; the suggestion was accepted and the figure and caption modified.
- When leaf analysis levels are used to add nutrients to soil or leaf, which levels summer or winter should be used? Explain in text
We proposed the summer values as leaf indexes; we reported it in the text (see the comments included in the introduction, discussion and conclusions).
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
No more comment
