The Influence of Slash Management Practices on Water and Nutrient Dynamics in Longleaf Pine Forests
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
This manuscript describes the effect of slash management practices on soil water and nutrients. I found this manuscript very well-written. One suggestion is to shorten the FWD classes instead of writing out the specific depths each time. The methods and results are easy to understand. I think that there could be more citations used from around the world in the discussion to support the findings and potential long-term changes. I believe that this manuscript should be accepted after minor revisions.
Figure 1. I would like to see the aerial photo of the study area that is blacked out. Can you just outline it? I don’t think it is necessary to show the county of the research site.
Line 166: Why was Quercus bulk density used?
Figure 2. It would also be nice to see these moisture blocks outlined instead of covered.
Results: I would suggest to not report F-values if you are already presenting p-values. Also, p should be lowercase.
Lines 250-251: Is this for the traditional harvest?
Lines 255-256: Why did you use pre-treatment depths to determine post-treatment bulk density of the litter and duff?
Figure 5 looks to be lower quality than other figures.
Lines 306-307: If there are no interactions, you should only present the difference between moisture blocks.
Line 509: Remove the second comma.
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.docx
Reviewer 2 Report
Dear co-authors
The manuscript entitled: "The Influence of Slash Management Practices on Water and Nutrient Dynamics in Longleaf Pine Systems" explained the impact of different silvicultural treatments (Mastication, Conventional harvesting, and Biomass harvesting) on soil water retention and nutrients following treatment implementation.
General comments:
1-Introduction:
It is too long for a research article and hard to follow. Please revise and modify it according to the comments in the pdf file!
2-Materials and Methods:
M&M is well written, but some revisions are needed to be improved!
3-Results:
It is hard to understand the results of which figures, table, or supplementary materials the authors are referring. Please revise it according to the comments in the pdf file!
For referring to the supplementary materials in the main text, please make a word file with tables!
4- Discussion:
The discussion is also well written and easy to follow, but some minor revisions need. So please revise it according to the comments in the pdf file!
Specific comments:
Please see the pdf file for the specific comments!
Comments for author File: 
Comments.pdf
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Round 2
Reviewer 2 Report
The authors did a great job and improved the manuscript dramatically by revising and addressing each point. However, some minor revisions need to be modified as follows:
-L34: Please change "Pinus palustris Mill." to "Pinus palustris Mill."
-Figure 3: Usually, the letters are arranged from higher to lower values. Conventional should label A and Mastication B. Pre-treatment bars should label with "a" to show there are no significant differences among the treatment! Please also clarify whether the error bar is the standard deviation or standard error (same for Figure 4).
-Chemical formula: please revise these chemical formulas:
NO3-, NH4+, PO43-, H2PO4-,HPO42-,SO42-
To type chemical formulas correctly in word office, use Insert tap -> Equation -> Script -> choose suitable Subscripts and Superscripts.
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
