Livestock Manure and the Impacts on Soil Health: A Review
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
This is a valuable review - one study gathers a lot of important information on the significance of manure for soil health. Such a review will certainly be useful to many other researchers, although a lot of information seems to be a textbook nature.
A few things, in my opinion, can be improved, however:
-It would be worth to add a methodology (rules) describing the process of selection of the papers that were used in the review. Was the selection of these studies accidental or based on specific rules (systematic review) ?
- If this review is international (universal), I do not fully understand why figure 1 with data for the USA was included in the introduction? Is it possible to replace this figure with data for the whole world ?
- At the end of the review, it would be useful to prepare a table containing (summarising) the most important conclusions from each section.
- line 53-54 and 63 – is’t it the same? („remains a nutrient source of great importance” = “remains an important source of nutrients in agricultural production”)
- line 104: „Ha-1” shouldn’t be „ha-1” ?
- line 192 (and many others): 40 MT ha-1 - is it correct ? (metric tons ?) ; also Mg (Megagrams) is used – I would recommended to standardize if possible.
- in line 221 there is “mg ha-1”; shouden’t be “Mg ha-1” ?
- „-1” should be in index probably
Author Response
Thank you for your valuable comments and constructive criticism of the manuscript. It will certainly contribute to improving the quality of this paper.
Your comments were addressed in the following ways:
- It would be worth to add a methodology (rules) describing the process of selection of the papers that were used in the review. Was the selection of these studies accidental or based on specific rules (systematic review) ?
A methodology section has been added describing the procedures used in the selection of peer- reviewed papers
- If this review is international (universal), I do not fully understand why figure 1 with data for the USA was included in the introduction? Is it possible to replace this figure with data for the whole world?
Figure 1 has been replaced and now includes worldwide (global) data
- At the end of the review, it would be useful to prepare a table containing (summarising) the most important conclusions from each section.
Table has now been prepared and is part of the new submission
- line 53-54 and 63 – is’t it the same? („remains a nutrient source of great importance” = “remains an important source of nutrients in agricultural production”)
Lines 53-54 have been deleted
- line 104: „Ha-1” shouldn’t be „ha-1” ?
Ha-1 has been changed to ha-1
- line 192 (and many others): 40 MT ha-1 - is it correct ? (metric tons ?) ; also Mg (Megagrams) is used – I would recommended to standardize if possible.
MT had been changed to Mg to make it uniform throughout the document
- in line 221 there is “mg ha-1”; shouden’t be “Mg ha-1” ?
mg ha-1 had been changed to Mg ha-1
- „-1” should be in index probably
-1 related to the units has been changed to subscript -1
Reviewer 2 Report
The topic of this manuscript is interesting and fits within the aims and scope of the Soil Syst. journal. The manuscript provided useful information on Effect of Different Sources of Manure on Soil Health and served as valuable resources for further research.
Some minor editorial comments and suggestions for Authors:
Line 23: Keywords: manure; soil fertility; nutrients; soil organic carbon
Figure 1: Please edit the figure and move the Manure Source and distance it from the X axis captions
Table 1, 2, 3, 5 and 6: Suggestion: you may only keep the reference number and no need to repeat the authors name in Reference column
Table 4: Is this a footnote for Table 4. My suggestion is adding it to the table caption: Table 4. Effects of dairy manure on organic matter (adapted from Butler et al. [43]).
Line 295: soil organic carbon (SOC)
Line 290 and etc: Please delete the space between the references to follow the journal format.
Comments for author File: 
Comments.pdf
Author Response
Thank you for your valuable feedback. Your comments have contributed to improving the quality of this paper. Below you will find my response to those comments.
Some minor editorial comments and suggestions for Authors:
Line 23: Keywords: manure; soil fertility; nutrients; soil organic carbon
- This line has been corrected
Figure 1: Please edit the figure and move the Manure Source and distance it from the X axis captions
- This figure has been replaced and format changes made to distance the label of the X-axis from the manure sources.
Table 1, 2, 3, 5 and 6: Suggestion: you may only keep the reference number and no need to repeat the authors name in Reference column
- Tables have been modified to only include the reference numbers instead of the names
Table 4: Is this a footnote for Table 4. My suggestion is adding it to the table caption: Table 4. Effects of dairy manure on organic matter (adapted from Butler et al. [43]).
- This change has been made
Line 295: soil organic carbon (SOC)
- This change has been made
Line 290 and etc: Please delete the space between the references to follow the journal format.
- We deleted the space in between references to follow the journal’s format.
Reviewer 3 Report
This study presents a comprehensive review about the influence of manure on soil nutrients and other soil properties, such as soil water retention, infiltration, soil temperature, etc. the review is well written and the content is very useful for other researchers and engineers working in this field. This reviewer has some comments or suggestions that may help the authors to further improve the quality of the review paper. The paper can be accepted for publication if all the raised questions can be addressed satisfactorily. Both the general and detailed comments are listed as follows.
- The authors have done a great job that reviews 54 papers and combines them together. However, one more section should be added at the end, namely the limitations of the current studies and future scope. This is important, as it can provide some potential research directions to others.
- When talking about the influence of manure on SOIL WATER RETENTION, authors should also mention other existing measures used in agricultural field in recent years, such biochar, natural fibres, etc. This can benefit the readers. You can refer to the following papers “Two-year evaluation of hydraulic properties of biochar-amended vegetated soil for application in landfill cover system”, Simple Model on Water Retention and Permeability in Soil Mixed with Lignocellulose Fibres”, etc.
- How about the long-term influence of manure on soil health, by considering the decomposition of livestock manure in field?
Author Response
This study presents a comprehensive review about the influence of manure on soil nutrients and other soil properties, such as soil water retention, infiltration, soil temperature, etc. the review is well written and the content is very useful for other researchers and engineers working in this field. This reviewer has some comments or suggestions that may help the authors to further improve the quality of the review paper. The paper can be accepted for publication if all the raised questions can be addressed satisfactorily. Both the general and detailed comments are listed as follows.
The authors have done a great job that reviews 54 papers and combines them together. However, one more section should be added at the end, namely the limitations of the current studies and future scope. This is important, as it can provide some potential research directions to others.
A section has now been added describing the opportunities for future research.
- When talking about the influence of manure on SOIL WATER RETENTION, authors should also mention other existing measures used in agricultural field in recent years, such biochar, natural fibres, etc. This can benefit the readers. You can refer to the following papers “Two-year evaluation of hydraulic properties of biochar-amended vegetated soil for application in landfill cover system”, Simple Model on Water Retention and Permeability in Soil Mixed with Lignocellulose Fibres”, etc.
A part has been added to the Soil Water section, referencing some work done with biochar, more specifically, the publication “Two-year evaluation of hydraulic properties of biochar-amended vegetated soil for application in landfill cover system”
- How about the long-term influence of manure on soil health, by considering the decomposition of livestock manure in field?
The authors feel that this is a great opportunity for a future paper focusing on the decomposition of manure and have as such, made the recommendation at the end of the paper together with some other directions for manure research in the future. In this work however, we have not specifically focused on that aspect, but thought that it would be great as a future project.
