Participatory Evaluation of Rice Varieties for Specific Adaptation to Organic Conditions in Italy

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

I suggest cluster analysis for the 21 cultivars to know the best cluster group of both old and new. It is not necessary hat all new are good one then the old one varieties.

Moreover, with cluster analysis one could know the best cluster out of the 21 varieties for each location.

Author Response

Reviewer #1

 

1. We have reviewed and improved all the items marked with “Can be improved”. We assumed that the item marked as “must be improved” was referring to the request of adding a cluster analysis (see below);
2. We added as requested a cluster analysis of the 21 varieties, which has implied adding one more figure in addition to the one with the meteorological information
3. We corrected a number of spellings and of grammatical errors

Reviewer 2 Report

Manuscript is interesting, it concerns current problems and in my opinion it is suitable for the journal ‘Sustainability’. The correct selection of the variety is very important, and even more so for organic farming, due to the limitations in the use of mineral fertilizers and chemical plant protection products. It is also important that the research results presented in the manuscript have application significance and can be used in agricultural practice.

Manuscript is generally well written. The 'Introduction' chapter is sufficiently large, introduces the topic and justifies the studies presented in the paper. Experiment is arranged properly, the experimental material is sufficient. The results are clearly presented. Tables and figures are adequate.

In my opinion manuscript is well prepared and requires only minor changes:

 

1. Please correct the way of citing the literature in the text in accordance with the requirements of the journal

2. The way of writing the units requires correction throughout the manuscript, e.g. it is g / m² and it should be g m^-2

3. line [156] ‘In 2019, TL farm applied the “stale seedbed in dry paddy (SD)” technique in 2019….’ - this sentence needs to be corrected

4. line [173] - how deep the rice was sown?

5. Line [180] Is Sinapis Alba – should be Sinapis alba

6. Line [262] - with such small plots, it is not appropriate to calculate the yield per hectare, it is more correct to give the yield in kg or g per m².

7. Is it not the same in lines [283] and in [286-287]?

8. In table 6 – is lsd_0.05   should be  LSD_0.05

Author Response

 

Reviewer #2

 

1. Please correct the way of citing the literature in the text in accordance with the requirements of the journal
2. Literature citation in the text was corrected
3. The way of writing the units requires correction throughout the manuscript, e.g. it is g / m2 and it should be g m-2
4. Corrected throughout the manuscript
5. line [156] ‘In 2019, TL farm applied the “stale seedbed in dry paddy (SD)” technique in 2019….’ - this sentence needs to be corrected
6. Corrected
7. line [173] - how deep the rice was sown?
8. We added sowing depth
9. Line [180] Is Sinapis Alba – should be Sinapis alba
10. Corrected three times

 

Reviewer 3 Report

The purpose of manuscript was to evaluate 21 rice cultivars in four organic/biodynamic farms for two growing seasons. The results of study should be important and useful for rice producers in organic and biodynamic farms. The structure of manuscript is proper and the results are statistically analyzed.

However, there are some shortcomings:

- include in the abstract concrete results of the study;

- In the introduction and discussion section, the correlation between study and sustainability should be further emphasized;

- agrometeorological parameters in each farm should be mention

- includes the type, company and country for each piece of equipment used in the research

- includes information on the fertilization and phytosanitary protection plan.

- Mention which certification bodies have accredited the farms as organic.

Author Response

Reviewer #3

 

1. Include in the abstract concrete results of the study;
2. We found it difficult to address this request as the major findings are already in the abstract
3. In the introduction and discussion section, the correlation between study and sustainability should be further emphasized;
4. We added a couple of sentences in the introduction and in the discussion
5. Agrometeorological parameters in each farm should be mention
6. We added section 2.6 on meteorological parameters and one figure (now Figure 1) with total rainfall, rainfall distribution and thermal time

Round 2

Reviewer 3 Report

The paper is improved and the authors generally responded well to the comments. I have not identified the figures in the manuscript or as an additional file. After including the figures in the text of the work, the manuscript could be published.

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 thought this was a well written paper and quite interesting. My main concern is that it really isn’t clear what the motivation is for analyzing the data of men and women separately. It seems if the participation was quite different from one year to the next, unless this is supposed to be the main element of difference among participants there isn’t a real benefit to analyzing them separately. I would guess that participants professional experience, age or number of years farming would have a bigger impact than gender. If you are planning to do another paper on these differences, I would include gender in that paper rather than here, or include those other factors here. I don’t think gender should be analyzed on its own without the other relevant demographic and professional information on participants, particularly since the imbalance among years makes drawing conclusions from an ANOVA difficult as the variances among categories may be quite different.

 

Pg. 2, line 59. This sentence doesn’t make sense grammatically. Did you mean something like “The transition from conventional to organic systems must take into consideration that organic systems need to be tailored to site specific environmental conditions”?

 

I don’t think that it is always true that organic systems have higher spatial and temporal heterogeneity at the farm level. There is definitely more variation among farms and can be more variation among fields within farms, but organic management often leads to higher soil organic matter which can buffer extremes in weather (flooding or drought) and the higher diversity within farms can sometimes lead to less severe disease epidemics.

 

Pg 4, line 190. Does the DiGGer package have a separate citation to the R core team or is it part of base R?

Pg 5, Line 237 Typo in height (missing t)

Author Response

Responses to Reviewer #1 (line numbers refers to the pdf annotated by Reviewer #2)

Please find our responses in the file attached

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

The main issue with this manuscript is the somewhat loose wording, loose reference to concepts and terms that have very specific meanings (misinterpretation), and several assertions that are not substantiated but the data/results presented, and are even sometime going against the data/results.   Please see the annotated manuscript for specific remark/question/recommendation regarding this issue. You will find three types of annotation : annotation with specific remark/question. Yellow highlighting = understanding problem è need for reformulation. Red line = can be deleted.   

The introduction need to be enriched with reference to experiences of PVS/PPB on cereals/crops other than rice in Europe.

The readability of the result section, can be improved by giving the farms and the varieties a number (F1, F2, F3, F4) and (V1, V2,…..,V22) and using only these number in the text (not the name + abbreviation). 

The Discussion, would gain in clarity if it could (i) focus on response to the three specific objective of the study presented in the introduction (ii) discuss methodological limitations (if any) and means and ways of improvement.

The conclusion could gain in credibility if it could provide an impact pass-way, i.e., moving from the experience with 4 farmers to the whole target population.

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Please find our replies in the attached file

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

..........................

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf