Innovative Tools for the Nitrogen Fertilization Traceability of Organic Farming Products

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Dear authors,

I had a great time reading and reviewing this manuscript. Below are some points to be considered.

Title.

The title is OK and concise.

Abstract.

The content of the abstract is very good however the sentences were quite long and hard to digest (eg lines 18-22, lines 24-28, and lines 28-33. The long sentences also appear in other subsections as well.

Keywords.

Good choice of keywords and not redundant with the title.

Background.

The background is sufficient, however, I would think some elaboration was needed for this section to give better clarity to the readers of what the manuscript aims to achieve. And please add citations whenever needed to give credit to the original authors.

Subsection 2.

As the title for subsection 2 suggests (up-to-date literature), I would encourage authors to revisit this part and have a look at the citations cited. A few of them are dated eg citation [7, 8, etc] and this does not justify the title for this subsection.

Line 61. Delete '.' before citation no [3].

Line 92. The formula given is a bit blurry and hard to see.

Lines 119-136. Only 1 citation was found to support all the statements given. 

Lines 128-136. Sentence was too long. Suggest to split the sentence.

Methodology.

I would suggest to add Figure or Flow chart to make the manuscript more interesting and more importantly to give more clarity to the readers.

Good luck!

The English are OK however since many sentences were quite long hence readers might need to reread a few times to digest the meaning. So I would suggest the authors split the long sentences whenever possible.

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

The manuscript entitled: Innovative tools for the nitrogen fertilization traceability of organic farming products

The manuscript is relevant for the field and presented in a well-structured manner, however there are several inputs that could improve the manuscript.

In the Abstract:

• Line 22-23 change to : An integrated system is proposed to evaluate the validity of organic goods by collecting isotopic data and other chemical and biological parameters.
• Line 24-28 Sentence too long, make it short and easier to the readers to understand.

In the Introduction and elsewhwere:

• Line 39 add references here
• Line 41 add references here
• Line 48 add references here

·       Line 65, Please elaborate the strategies.

·       Line 72 change to:... In fact, in the majority of organic farms, the sole traceability mechanism in place is based on documentary evidence that agricultural management complies with European regulations.

·       Line 100, please use formal words/language

·       Line 128-135 too long sentence, make it short and easier to the readers to understand

• Line 140 change to One possibility is to incorporate conventional, organic, and mixed N fertilization options in the experimental design, comparing them at varying fertilizer percentages.

·       Line 146 agroecological, elaborate on this one.

• Line 152 why should? why not other multivariate technique such as PCA, etc

Other comments please see the manuscript.

In addition, most of the references used are too old please use newer and updated references.

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

Dear author, 

The article entitled "Innovative tools for the nitrogen fertilization traceability of organic farming products" is interesting and create a new paradigm in this area. This article provides a new idea based on the existing literature. This article can be accepted; however improvement is required. My comment is below:

In the Section of "Perspective" the authors mention that: In particular, the main perspectives of the application of this kind of approach are linked to the possibility to: i) allow, through the acquisition of isotopic data and other chemical and biochemical parameters, to discern between productions obtained with synthetic fertilizers, typically employed in conventional agriculture and not allowed in organic agriculture, and productions obtained with the organic agriculture method; ii) improve the general understanding of the factors influencing the quality of organic products and their differentiation from conventional ones; iii) allow the traceability of organic products from field to fork which, in turn, would contribute to protect and reward virtuous farmers; iv) valorize the environmental externalities linked to the application of organic farming practices and v) support policy makers in identifying methodologies for contrasting food fraud.

There, in the section of "Up-to date literature" and "Methodology" need more elaboration for supporting the above 5-point perspectives.

 

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 4 Report

The manuscript horticulturae-2454500 has a very interesting question and gives a very good, detailed overview of innovative tools the nitrogen fertilization traceability of organic farming products. The paper is well-organized and well-written. As the authors mentioned in the paper, biochemical and transcriptional approaches are the main methods for the discrimination of organic and conventional cultivated crops. In addition to these methods, isotopic ratio is also widely used to discriminate organic and conventional cultivated crops.

Two small issues should be improved:

1 I am confused about the third paragraph of up-to date literature. I think it is out of the topic of the paper and I suggest the authors deleted it.

2 I suggest the authors provide a flow diagram for methodology.

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf