Impact of Tillage and Straw Treatment Methods on Rice Growth and Yields in a Rice–Ratoon Rice Cropping System
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
The research to decide two harvesting in rice-ratoon cultivation is necessary. The costs of production are saved, when the second yield simply can be harvested. I make a few remarks for the improving the quality of the manuscript.
Line 7. I suggest not write a “Lack of research”, it could be changed to the description of problem, that is causing the research.
Line 9. Field studies dates from 2016, but why the results of 2020 and 2021 are present. The abstract can be added with purpose of research. There is no purpose, unexplained novelty of the study in manuscript below.
Keywords I recommended to improve; you select No-tillage/ why not Plow tillage
Straw returning/ why not straw removing.
Line 96. Experimental design. Yield is highly dependent not only on soil tillage management, but also on environmental conditions - the authors could mention what it was weather conditions.
Unknown tillage equipment, no description of no-till equipment, and seed drill, what was incorporation depth of the residues.
Line 164. The results are described very narrowly, could be commented more widely. Why resulting in a 33%, 29% increase yield? Maybe first can be presented an increase in leaf area and roots, and then it can cause a yield increase.
The discussion section looks like an overview. We see how much research has been done to determine the tillage and residues management dependencies on rice yield. The results of this study could be compared with other authors, how much the yield, root, leaf is differed from the obtained research of other authors.
You aren’t presented main findings as conclusion, or arguments.
The references in the text must be numbered, the references list must be correct the head-on form. After that, you should check the references.
Photo of treatment or visualization could better represent the implementation of the study.
Author Response
Thank you very much for reviewing our manuscript. Your comments are very important to improve the quality of the article and our future study. Under the guidance of your comments, we have completed the first revision of the manuscript. Thank you again and wish you good health and success in your career.
The research to decide two harvesting in rice-ratoon cultivation is necessary. The costs of production are saved, when the second yield simply can be harvested. I make a few remarks for the improving the quality of the manuscript.
Line 7. I suggest not write a “Lack of research”, it could be changed to the description of problem, that is causing the research.
Reply:We changed "Lack of research" to "The rice-ratoon rice cropping system has the advantages of saving labor and high economic benefits. Optimizing tillage and straw management is beneficial for improving ratoon rice growth and yield."
Line 9. Field studies dates from 2016, but why the results of 2020 and 2021 are present. The abstract can be added with purpose of research. There is no purpose, unexplained novelty of the study in manuscript below.
Reply:Trial treatments were started in 2016 and we collected plant samples in 2020 and 2021. We have revised "2016-2021" to "2020-2021". We have revised the abstract to highlight the importance of studying tillage and straw management in regenerative rice systems for rice growth and yield. We have revised the Abstract to highlight the importance of studying the effects of tillage and straw management on rice growth and yield in rice-ratoon rice cropping system.
Keywords I recommended to improve; you select No-tillage/ why not Plow tillage
Straw returning/ why not straw removing.
Reply: Done
Line 96. Experimental design. Yield is highly dependent not only on soil tillage management, but also on environmental conditions - the authors could mention what it was weather conditions.
Reply:We've added weather data for the 2020 and 2021 rice growing seasons
Unknown tillage equipment, no description of no-till equipment, and seed drill, what was incorporation depth of the residues.
Reply: Sowing by manual transplanting. Residues infiltrates into the soil layer of 15±10cm with tillage (CT+S).
Line 164. The results are described very narrowly, could be commented more widely. Why resulting in a 33%, 29% increase yield? Maybe first can be presented an increase in leaf area and roots, and then it can cause a yield increase.
Reply: We have corrected the data analysis method. We adjusted the data presentation order.
The discussion section looks like an overview. We see how much research has been done to determine the tillage and residues management dependencies on rice yield. The results of this study could be compared with other authors, how much the yield, root, leaf is differed from the obtained research of other authors.
Reply: We have removed generalizations from the discussion to make the discussion more coherent. We have added a comparison of the metrics in this paper with the results of previous studies
You aren’t presented main findings as conclusion, or arguments.
Reply:We add a conclusion
The references in the text must be numbered, the references list must be correct the head-on form. After that, you should check the references.
Reply:We have revised the format of the references
Photo of treatment or visualization could better represent the implementation of the study.
Reply:We convert the table to a picture
Reviewer 2 Report
The authors demonstrate the effects of offspring season rice yield and yield composition under different tillage (T) + straw (S) treatments. NT+S: no-tillage with main season and sucker season rice residues retained on the soil surface, CT+S: residue retention tillage, NT-S: no-tillage with residues removed, CT-S : plow tillage with residues eliminated , ns: No significant effects. They do not explain what were the indicators that as a consequence achieved these results.
Studies of Nitrogen, Carbon, Organic Matter were carried out. in the results they do not discuss these parameters, they would be necessary due to the importance of the results and with respect to the parameters they measured.
It is important to discuss these results
Author Response
Thank you very much for reviewing our manuscript. Your comments are very important to improve the quality of the article and our future study. Under the guidance of your comments, we have completed the first revision of the manuscript. Thank you again and wish you good health and success in your career.
The authors demonstrate the effects of offspring season rice yield and yield composition under different tillage (T) + straw (S) treatments. NT+S: no-tillage with main season and sucker season rice residues retained on the soil surface, CT+S: residue retention tillage, NT-S: no-tillage with residues removed, CT-S : plow tillage with residues eliminated , ns: No significant effects. They do not explain what were the indicators that as a consequence achieved these results.
Reply:We have significantly revised the manuscript to reflect the effects of different treatments on various indicators in rice
Studies of Nitrogen, Carbon, Organic Matter were carried out. in the results they do not discuss these parameters, they would be necessary due to the importance of the results and with respect to the parameters they measured.
Reply:This study mainly involved the indicators of rice root function, photosynthetic capacity and yield. We mentioned Nitrogen, Carbon, and Organic Matter in the discussion.
It is important to discuss these results
Reply:We have removed generalizations from the discussion to make the discussion more coherent. We have added a comparison of the metrics in this paper with the results of previous studies. We added the reasons for the inconsistency between the results of this paper and previous results in the discussion, and made inferences.
Reviewer 3 Report
The manuscript provides interesting and useful information regarding effect of tillage and straw management on rice. The data generated is comprehensive, but discussion of all aspects needs to be improved. Overall, the article is matched with the standard of Sustainability after improvement in following points
Abstract is most important part of a manuscript, but in this manuscript the starting line is very poor that will have not a good impression. Its better to modify it.
Line 13: remove ‘with’, it should be used once
Line 23: “At present, due to population growth and climate change, which have a greater impact on crop production, and food is in danger of shortage” should be changed as “Currently, due to rapid increase in global population and climate change, there will be huge impact on crop production which may threaten food security”
Language editing is required.
Please re-verify the units of all parameters.
Line 209: remove ‘with’, it should be used once
Line 217: The way of writing this citation (Denardin 217 et al.(Denardin et al., 2019) is incorrect.
Line 227: Correct raroon as ratoon.
Discussion of the results is fine, but there should be further improvement in it, discussion should be merely based on the observed findings, but there should be reasoning for improvement in different parameters due to respective treatments.
There should be a separate conclusion section in which, the authors should note the limitations of the study. It should mention the scope for further research as well as the implications/application of the study. Remember that the conclusions must be self-explanatory.
Author Response
Thank you very much for reviewing our manuscript. Your comments are very important to improve the quality of the article and our future study. Under the guidance of your comments, we have completed the first revision of the manuscript. Thank you again and wish you good health and success in your career.
The manuscript provides interesting and useful information regarding effect of tillage and straw management on rice. The data generated is comprehensive, but discussion of all aspects needs to be improved. Overall, the article is matched with the standard of Sustainability after improvement in following points
Abstract is most important part of a manuscript, but in this manuscript the starting line is very poor that will have not a good impression. Its better to modify it.
Reply:We have revised the abstract.
Line 13: remove ‘with’, it should be used once
Reply: Done
Line 23: “At present, due to population growth and climate change, which have a greater impact on crop production, and food is in danger of shortage” should be changed as “Currently, due to rapid increase in global population and climate change, there will be huge impact on crop production which may threaten food security”
Reply: Done
Language editing is required.
Reply: We have language edited the full text
Please re-verify the units of all parameters.
Reply: We re-validated the units of all parameters in the article
Line 209: remove ‘with’, it should be used once
Reply: Done
Line 217: The way of writing this citation (Denardin 217 et al.(Denardin et al., 2019) is incorrect.
Reply:We have revised the format of the references
Line 227: Correct raroon as ratoon.
Reply: Done
Discussion of the results is fine, but there should be further improvement in it, discussion should be merely based on the observed findings, but there should be reasoning for improvement in different parameters due to respective treatments.
Reply: We have removed generalizations from the discussion to make the discussion more coherent. We have added a comparison of the metrics in this paper with the results of previous studies
There should be a separate conclusion section in which, the authors should note the limitations of the study. It should mention the scope for further research as well as the implications/application of the study. Remember that the conclusions must be self-explanatory.
Reply:We add a conclusion
Reviewer 4 Report
English should improve by a native person. The paper suffers from a poor English structure throughout and cannot be published or reviewed properly in the current format. The manuscript requires a thorough proofread by a native person whose first language is English. The instances of the problem are numerous and this reviewer cannot individually mention them. It is the responsibility of the author(s) to present their work in an acceptable format. Unless the paper is in a reasonable format, it should not have been submitted.
2. The novelty of the study needs to be highlighted compare to other similar studies.
3. Discussion is weak. The discussion needs enhancement with real explanations not only agreements and disagreements. Authors should improve it by the demonstration of biochemical/physiological causes of obtained results. Instead of just justifying results, results should be interpreted, explained to appropriately elaborate inferences. Discussion seems to be poor, didn't give good explanations of the results obtained. I think that it must be really improved. Where possible please discuss potential mechanisms behind your observations. You should also expand the links with prior publications in the area, but try to be careful to not over-reach. For the latter, you should highlight potential areas of future study.
4. The scientific background of the topic is poor. In "Introduction" and "Discussion", the authors should cite recent references between 2016-2020 from JCR journals.
Fahad S, Hasanuzzaman M, Alam M, Ullah H, Saeed M, Ali Khan I, Adnan M. (Eds.) (2020) Environment, Climate, Plant and Vegetation Growth. Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-49732-3
Fahad, S., Sönmez, O., Saud, S., Wang, D., Wu, C., Adnan, M., Arif, M., Amanullah. (Eds.), (2021e.) Engineering Tolerance in Crop Plants Against Abiotic Stress, First edition. ed, Footprints of climate variability on plant diversity. CRC Press, Boca Raton.
Author Response
Thank you very much for reviewing our manuscript. Your comments are very important to improve the quality of the article and our future study. Under the guidance of your comments, we have completed the first revision of the manuscript. Thank you again and wish you good health and success in your career.
English should improve by a native person. The paper suffers from a poor English structure throughout and cannot be published or reviewed properly in the current format. The manuscript requires a thorough proofread by a native person whose first language is English. The instances of the problem are numerous and this reviewer cannot individually mention them. It is the responsibility of the author(s) to present their work in an acceptable format. Unless the paper is in a reasonable format, it should not have been submitted.
Reply: We have language edited the full text
The novelty of the study needs to be highlighted compare to other similar studies.
Reply: We emphasize the novelty of this paper in the last paragraph of the abstract and preface
Discussion is weak. The discussion needs enhancement with real explanations not only agreements and disagreements. Authors should improve it by the demonstration of biochemical/physiological causes of obtained results. Instead of just justifying results, results should be interpreted, explained to appropriately elaborate inferences. Discussion seems to be poor, didn't give good explanations of the results obtained. I think that it must be really improved. Where possible please discuss potential mechanisms behind your observations. You should also expand the links with prior publications in the area, but try to be careful to not over-reach. For the latter, you should highlight potential areas of future study.
Reply:We have removed generalizations from the discussion to make the discussion more coherent. We have added a comparison of the metrics in this paper with the results of previous studies. We added the reasons for the inconsistency between the results of this paper and previous results in the discussion, and made inferences.
The scientific background of the topic is poor. In "Introduction" and "Discussion", the authors should cite recent references between 2016-2020 from JCR journals.
Fahad S, Hasanuzzaman M, Alam M, Ullah H, Saeed M, Ali Khan I, Adnan M. (Eds.) (2020) Environment, Climate, Plant and Vegetation Growth. Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-49732-3
Fahad, S., Sönmez, O., Saud, S., Wang, D., Wu, C., Adnan, M., Arif, M., Amanullah. (Eds.), (2021e.) Engineering Tolerance in Crop Plants Against Abiotic Stress, First edition. ed, Footprints of climate variability on plant diversity. CRC Press, Boca Raton.
Reply:We cite the above two books in the manuscript
Round 2
Reviewer 4 Report
Accepted as it stands
