Bacterivorous Nematodes Correlate with Soil Fertility and Improved Crop Production in an Organic Minimum Tillage System
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
The publication presented for review is very interesting and has been prepared very thoroughly. Thoroughly described research methodology and discussion The literature was compiled correctly.
In my opinion, the Figure 2 is not legible. I suggest adding a legend at the bottom or on the right and explaining briefly what the colored bars mean.
I made some comments in the comments (Yellow Windows). to improve the publication
Comments for author File: 
Comments.pdf
Author Response
| 338 | "between tillage" deleted |
| 243, 379,383,386,387,389,396 | Spearmans rho was replaced by rs - subscripted |
| 535-605 | Conclusions were reduced to one paragraph as also suggested by reviewer3. The main focus is now based on the articles title |
| Table 2 and 3 | Parenthesis removed from all records |
| Figure 2 | Legend was placed underneath |
| Complete manuscript | An English editing of the manuscript was performed by a native speaker (Dr. O.D. Weedon, University of Kassel) as indicated in the acknowledgements |
Reviewer 2 Report
Some minor aspects for improving:
Line 46: Point is missing. Use an other term for „biological soil components“ e.g. biological soil activity or soil biota?
Line 146 -153. Move to references
Table 1 should be improved regarding clear differentation of main crop and cover crop.
The letters for showing the statistical differences should be placed to he mean value and not to SE. Letters should be superscripted.
Check the letters for showing the statistical differences in the table. Sometimes they are missing e.g. in table 4 for pods.
Table 4.: Why do you use the estimated marginal mean? I suggest to change it to the average mean.
Author Response
| 48 | Point added before "Although" |
| 148-155 | Specfic chapters of the VDLUFA book that were used for analysis of nutrients were addeded to the VDLUFA reference (Lines 684-693 |
| Table 1, L 131 | A clearer differentiation of cover crops and main crops was given by adding an additional column |
| Table 3, 4 | letter showing statistical differences were placed behind the mean values and letters were superscripted |
| Table 3 and 4 | statistical differences were checked. The wrongly typed "C" after minimum tillage + compost in Table 4 was deleted |
| Table 4 | We used estimated marginal means for all calculations of statistical differences. In unbalanced designes the EMMEANS value might vary from original means. However, we checked the values of each table and found out that the EMMEANS values were identical with the original mean values in all cases and therefore, we used only "Means" in the Table heading of Table 4 |
Reviewer 3 Report
MS: Bacterivorous nematodes correlate with soil fertility and improved crop production in an organic minimum tillage system. Two long-term field experiments were set up in 2010 and 2011 comparing plough versus minimum tillage including application of transferred mulch. Application of compost versus mineral potassium and phosphorus was compared as second factor. In 2019, soils were analyzed for soil pH, organic carbon, macro-, micronutrients, microbial biomass, microbial activity and total nematode abundance. In addition, performance of pea in the same soils was determined under greenhouse conditions. The MS is well organized, however below there are some comments.
L32-35 this long sentences should be divided into two sentences. L51 Two options to achieve, please rewerite this sentence.
L82-101 the aim of the study should be shorter than the current version.
I prefer to move Figure 1 and Table 1 into material and methods section.
L108: started in 2010 and in 2011 in (Authors should remove in before 2011).
L108-110 authors should add country name.
Authors should write below each table or figure what do mean the abbreviations. Also, they should the indiction for the letters of a, b, c etc that should the sigificant differences below the tables.
Results and discussion sections are written well
I prefer authors can add one figure about the pea growth such as figure 1 (potato).
conclusion: should be shortlized into one paragraph, now it is too long.
Author Response
| 33-36 | The long sentence was divided in two separate sentences |
| 53 | "Two options to achieve this" was deleted and replaced by "This could be achieved by the…." |
| 84-103 | three sentences were deleted from the description of the study aim; we would like to keep the rest as we believe that these are important for understanding of our hypothesis |
| 110 | "in" was deleted bevor 2011 |
| Figure 1 / Table 1 | We would like to keep the figure 1 in the introduction section because we first mentioned the figure in this section and tried to avoid that the readers are searching this figure in the other sections. Table 1 stays in the material and methods section |
| 110-112 | country name (Germany) added |
| Abbreviations and indications of letters showing significant differences were placed underneath the tables | |
| Foto of pea biomass; shown at the end of the manuscript | Due the bad background of the foto, we suggest to add the Figure showing the differences in pea biomass production between treatments as appendix 1 |
| Conclusion | Was reduced to one paragraph as also suggested by reviewer 1 |
