Comparison of the Biomass and Dendrometric Parameters of Norway Spruce with Its Different Representations in Young Stands at Lower Altitudes in the Czech Republic
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report (Previous Reviewer 1)
The authors should check the English - although I am not a native speaker, I have noticed the following spelling mistakes
L30: add should be cultivated
L31 an annual
L32: should be no more
L103: is cambisol
L142: were processed
L153 delete "also"
L172: delete "a" linear regression curves
Table 2 headline...there is something missing
L 251 ...delete "are" have undergone
Conclusion: the results of the case study show that (a study cann't conclude)
L332 the mean spruce tree had
L343: ...should be cultivated
L. 345: ...should be no more than
The Spruce stands were in mixture with other tree species, but the authors don't mention which species. This information this is important for assessing the growth dynamics of spruce, as the accompanying tree species have different competitive characteristics. Still the description of the plant material is incomplete.
To my opinion the mixture with other tree species has to be included into the discussion as well.
I would suggest the authors to refine the manuscript and to submit again.
Author Response
Dear Reviewer,
thank you for giving us new chance. Thanks to the reviews of our opponents, we improved our first manuscript a lot, which they also wrote in their subsequent reviews. We tried to fully integrate the last review, which we managed to do. We hope you will be satisfied.
Best regards
J.Kadlec
Author Response File: 
Author Response.docx
Reviewer 2 Report (Previous Reviewer 2)
The revised version of the article is significantly improved and is considered for possible publication.
Author Response
Dear Reviewer,
thank you for giving us new chance. Thanks to the reviews of our opponents, we improved our first manuscript a lot, which they also wrote in their subsequent reviews. We tried to fully integrate the last review, which we managed to do. We hope you will be satisfied.
Best regard
J.Kadlec
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
This manuscript is a resubmission of an earlier submission. The following is a list of the peer review reports and author responses from that submission.
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
-I'm not a native english speaker, but to me it seems that the language should be revised e.g. l 51: something missing?"...also [8]"; l59 "under the context"; l61 "to a lower spruce production" instead of biomass production
- The information about the provenances, which were chosen for the trials is important; the authors only stated that the plants originated from artificial regeneration. Does this mean that all the 48 stands originated from one and the same provenance? If not, there might be a problem in interpreting the results as growth may also be affected by the genetic background of the plant material
- Another important point for the study seems to be the aspect of thinning. The authors mention that the older stands went through a thinning procedure. Now there remains the open question if the percentage of admixture refers to the period before or after the thinning prcedure, because this can essentially influence the results.
- The titel with focus on dendrometric parameters (to me an uncommon term) seems to be not appropriate, because the study focusses mainly on biomass
Author Response
Dear reviewer,
we tried to supplement and correct your and other opponents' comments to the manuscript.
Material and methods, results and conclusion are completely reworked. Moreover, we divided material and methods to the section, we added to the results percetage differences and p-values to the tables. (main ideas of results are commented in text) and we summarized conclusion to the main points.
All manuscript underwent the extensive revision that was needed.
We hope that this manuscript is better than that older.
Best regards authors
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Reviewer 2 Report
The topic is of interest and falls in journal scope but due to some major issues, I am recommending major revision. Below are some major comments.
Please improve introduction in light of most recent references (2015-2022).
The materials and method section is too short, not acceptable in SCI quality journal like forests. Please add subheadings and also increase the length with proper explanation.
Figures presentation is very poor. Please re-plot all figures.
- The bars mentioned (standard error bar or STDVA) showed a wide range in repeat data, which is not good results. Please re-check your repeat data, why repeat data for each treatment have no similarities.
- The presentation of statistical significance letters are not correct, please make it down near the head of each bar.
- The results section must be improved by adding more data and text and also adding some correlation figures/tables.
If the authors can address all the above comments. I will be happy to check the revise version.
Author Response
Dear reviewer,
we tried to supplement and correct your and other opponents' comments to the manuscript.
Material and methods, results and conclusion are completely reworked. Moreover, we divided material and methods to the section, we added to the results percetage differences and p-values to the tables. (main ideas of results are commented in text) and we summarized conclusion to the main points.
All manuscript underwent the extensive revision that was needed.
We hope that this manuscript is better than that older.
Best regards authors
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Reviewer 3 Report
There are many unfinished points throughout the manuscript. The entire article is about 12 pages of content, but nothing innovative is written in it. The manuscript has not big packs of topic knowledge.
There is no in-depth statistical analysis. Statistical analysis was not sufficiently discussed. The entire manuscript looks like an excerpt from a report from some major work. Without statistics and research, the article does not contribute to any knowledge development. An expansion of literature, conclusions and discussions is required.
English needs a lot of improvement.
Author Response
Dear reviewer,
we tried to supplement and correct your and other opponents' comments to the manuscript.
Material and methods, results and conclusion are completely reworked. Moreover, we divided material and methods to the section, we added to the results percetage differences and p-values to the tables. (main ideas of results are commented in text) and we summarized conclusion to the main points.
All manuscript underwent the extensive revision that was needed.
We hope that this manuscript is better than that older.
Best regards authors
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
I'm not a native English speaker but still it seems to me that the English needs revision, especially the new added parts of the revised version (e.g. last sentence of the paper - it is much too long and the English grammar seems to be not correct)
The additional explanations concerning Material + Methods are helpfull, but the explanation of the figures are not informative enough. The same is true for the figures itself. Usually a figure and its legend should give enough information to the reader that he understands the figure without reading the text (e.g. Text 3.1 does not correspond with figure 1 - there is no 1D-5 - 1I-25?)
The tables 2-4 are confusing and space consuming and should be formatted differently; it's not acceptable in the present form
Reviewer 2 Report
The author significantly improved the revised version.
Reviewer 3 Report
Unfortunately, the article has not been corrected following the reviewer's comments. There are many unfinished points throughout the manuscript.
The manuscript has not pack of topic knowledge.
The discussion was not conducted in accordance with the guidelines of the journal. An expansion of literature, conclusions and discussions is required.
In this form, I advise against publishing the article in this journal.
English needs a lot of improvement.
