Effect of Variation in Row Spacing on Soil Wind Erosion, Soil Properties, and Cyperus esculentus Yield in Sandy Land
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
1. Comparing with Table 1, the sentence of “2.3, 6.1, and 2.6 times of 90 cm” is suggested instead of “2.3, 6.1, and 4.0 times 30 cm higher than 90 cm” at last second row of page 3.
2. To keep consistency, the word of “leaf yield” is suggested instead of “forage yield’ at last third row of page 3 and that in Table 1, or describes the difference of forage and leaf yield in this paper.
Author Response
Dear reviewer:
Thank you for comments to improve our manuscript. We appreciate the valuable suggestions from the review process. We have revised the manuscript by carefully addressing the suggestions. We believe the clarity of the manuscript is improved because of the changes. Please find below our detailed response to all comments; the comments are in italics. Included in the revised submission is Word file with changes visible with Track Changes (red color). A version with changes accepted is also included.
Sincerely.
Liu Yalan
- Comparing with Table 1, the sentence of “2.3, 6.1, and 2.6 times of 90 cm” is suggested instead of “2.3, 6.1, and 4.0 times 30 cm higher than 90 cm” at last second row of page 3.
Addressed. We revised the wrong, and improve the statement, please see lines 134-136.
- To keep consistency, the word of “leaf yield” is suggested instead of “forage yield’ at last third row of page 3 and that in Table 1, or describes the difference of forage and leaf yield in this paper.
Addressed. We have reworked these expressions and changed them all to ‘leaf’. Please see line 133.
Reviewer 2 Report
The authors have evaluated various row spacings and their impact on soil wind erosion, soil properties, and yield. Below are a few points that can improve this manuscript:
1. Line nos are missing.
2. Sec 2.1 “…of Potassium sulfate ≥52%)”: The starting of the parenthesis is missing.
3. “Table 1. the growth of C.esculentus response to row spacing.”- The table caption needs to be capitalized.
4. “C.esculentus” should be spaced as “C. esculentus”. But the space has been missed out in multiple places.
5. ”Fertilizers were added 20 times, 33.75 kg·hm-2 of urea, 15 kg·hm-2 of Potassium sulfate ≥52%), and 187.5 m3·hm-2 of water were applied each time.” – this and many other such sentences need to be clearly rewritten for better understanding of the readers.
6. The overall English grammar of the entire manuscript needs to be improved for better understanding as there are many instances of grammatical errors. Eg: “With increasing row spacing, plant coverage significantly declined, which (??) maximum at 30cm row spacing.” ; “Plant height in 30cm row spacing was 36.6% and 37.8% higher than (“that” needs to be added here) in 60cm and 90cm.” (“respectively” needs to be added here); “Compare to control, pH in the canopy of C.esculentus decreased…” (it should be “compared”); etc.
7. Consistency in writing units: In certain cases space has been provided between the digit and its unit and in certain cases, the space has not been provided. This needs to be rectified throughout the manuscript for better formatting.
8. In many places of the entire manuscript, the words are double/inconsistently spaced.
9. Please include some numbers and percentages for comparative analysis against the relevant results that are already known in the literature.
10. In the discussion section, the reviewer believes there is a lack of answer to the question ‘why this trend’ and an overall comprehensive explanation of the results observed.
Author Response
Dear reviewer:
Thank you for comments to improve our manuscript. We appreciate the valuable suggestions from the review process. We have revised the manuscript by carefully addressing the suggestions. We believe the clarity of the manuscript is improved because of the changes. Please find below our detailed response to all comments; the comments are in italics. Included in the revised submission is Word file with changes visible with Track Changes (red color). A version with changes accepted is also included.
Sincerely
Liu Yalan
- Line nos are missing.
Addressed. We added line nos in the article.
- Sec 2.1 “…of Potassium sulfate ≥52%)”: The starting of the parenthesis is missing.
Addressed. We have reworked this statement, and the parenthesis was added, please see line 93.
- “Table 1. the growth of esculentusresponse to row spacing.”- The table caption needs to be capitalized.
Addressed. The table caption was capitalized. Please see Table 1.
- “esculentus” should be spaced as “C. esculentus”. But the space has been missed out in multiple places.
Addressed. The words were revised, and the changes are highlighted in red in the text.
- ”Fertilizers were added 20 times, 33.75 kg·hm-2of urea, 15 kg·hm-2 of Potassium sulfate ≥52%), and 187.5 m3·hm-2 of water were applied each time.” – this and many other such sentences need to be clearly rewritten for better understanding of the readers.
Addressed. The statement was rewritten, please see lines 84-91.
- The overall English grammar of the entire manuscript needs to be improved for better understanding as there are many instances of grammatical errors. Eg: “With increasing row spacing, plant coverage significantly declined, which (??) maximum at 30cm row spacing.” ; “Plant height in 30cm row spacing was 36.6% and 37.8% higher than (“that” needs to be added here) in 60cm and 90cm.” (“respectively” needs to be added here); “Compare to control, pH in the canopy of C.esculentus decreased…” (it should be “compared”); etc.
The English of the manuscript was improved. And we've corrected the examples you gave in your comments, please see the whole article.
- Consistency in writing units: In certain cases space has been provided between the digit and its unit and in certain cases, the space has not been provided. This needs to be rectified throughout the manuscript for better formatting.
Addressed. We have improved the article as a whole, with the wrongs of space and writing were improved, please see the manuscript.
- In many places of the entire manuscript, the words are double/inconsistently spaced.
Addressed. We have improved the article as a whole, with the wrongs being improved, please see the manuscript.
- Please include some numbers and percentages for comparative analysis against the relevant results that are already known in the literature.
Addressed. We added some statements about numbers and percentages, please see the section of results.
Reviewer 3 Report
1) This paper might even be an interesting contribution to research on ‘soil wind erosion, soil properties and yield of Cyperus esculentus in desertified land`;
2) However, in its current form, the article has little academic and scientific value;
3) So, it must be significantly improved from the very beginning;
4) For instance, some methodological, spell checking, formatting and writing issues are listed below (underlined text):
- AFFLIATION, CHECK FORMATTING RULES;
Abstract:
- CHECK TEXT: ‘great potential as an ecological-economic crop for oil extracting and sand fixation’;
- CHECK WORDING: ‘Therefore, we conducted a field experiment to explore the response of organ yields of C.esculentus, soil wind erosion, and soil properties to different row spacing (30 cm, 60 cm, 90 cm) with bare land is control in desertified land???, Xinjiang, NW of China.’;
- *IMPROVE ENGLISH: ‘The higher coverage of C.esculentus facilitates soil fixation and conservation, the amount of soil wind erosion in increasing row spacing treatments were 11.7, 3.1, and 4.9 times of that by the control plot, respectively’;
- CHECK TEXT: ‘The change of soil texture combined with soil nutrients and plant growth as soil nutrient concentrations, yields, and root nutrient concentrations are positively related to clay percentage and negatively related to sand particles’;
Introduction
- REFERENCES, CHECK FORMATTING RULES: ‘…(Chen et al.2008; Paolo et al., 2013).’; and so on
- CHECK TEXT: ‘But there are some studies showed an inconsistent view, crop yields were higher in wider row spacing rather than in narrow row spacing and that might due to more intense interplant competition (Birhanu et al., 2018; York et al., 2015; Shao et al., 2019).’;
- CHECK ENGLISH: ‘the crop in farmland have??? been rarely studied’;
Experiment site and design
- CHECK a possible ‘extra’ ‘)’: ‘15 kg·hm-2 of Potassium sulfate ≥52%)???,’;
- CHECK TEXT, a ‘PERIOD’ appears to be missing: ‘The sampler is 1.0m high and sectioned into 10 openings???’;
Sampling and measurements
- ABBREVIATIONS, CHECK FORMATTING RULES: ‘The MBC and MBN were measured by the fumigation-extraction method (Vance et al., 1987).’;
Yields and nutrient concentrations response to strip spacing
- The authors are invited to improve and deeply reformulate this “section” of the paper; see for instance, the ‘examples’ listed below:
- CHECK TEXT, IMPROVE WORDING AND ENGLISH: ‘With increasing row spacing, plant coverage significantly declined, which maximum at 30cm row spacing. Plant height in 30cm row spacing was 36.6% and 37.8% higher than in 60cm and 90cm. Plant density and tiller numbers were 2.28 and 1.64 times of 60cm, and 2.6 and 2.1 times of 90cm respectively. The forage, root, and tuber yields were 2.3, 5.6, and 2.9 times of 60cm, and 2.3, 6.1, and 4.0 times 30cm higher than 90cm respectively’;
- *TABLES 1 and 2; FIGURES 1 and 2, CHECK CAREFULLY, improve and make all the necessary amendments: for instance, all ‘variables’ ((c), c, (b), b, (a), a, and CK) must be explained better to avoid misinterpretation and make its meaning ‘easy to read and understand’;
Soil wind erosion and soil property response to strip spacing
- CHECK TEXT: ‘Soil wind erosion under the canopy of C.esculentus was significantly lower than in control, with the lowest amount of soil wind erosion was observed at 30cm row spacing. The 60cm and 90cm row spacing caused 27.6 g/cm2 , and 17.5 g/cm2 soil wind erosion, corresponding to 3.8 and 1.6 times of that of the 30cm, respectively’;
- CHECK ENGLISH: ‘Compare to control, pH in the canopy of C.esculentus decreased, and to a minimum at 30cm.’;
Plant growth response to different strip spacing
- CHECK TEXT: ‘That implied that C.esculentus could adapt to high plant density and the extreme environment rather than plant density mainly in this region.’;
- CHECK TEXT: ‘That might can be ascribed to higher root biomass exerting a dilutive effect on root nutrient concentrations (Yang et al., 2018).’;
Soil wind erosion and soil property response to different strip spacing
- CHECK WORDING: ‘and the decrease in soil wind erosion is associated with an increase of fine particles inevitable’;
- CHECK a ‘possible’ missing ‘period’: ‘sand particles decreased under the C.esculentus canopy??? Moreover,’;
- CHECK TEXT: ‘Moreover, fine particles positively influence soil nutrient enrichment has been studied widely (Larney et al. 1998; Yan et al., 2011).’;
Conclusion
- IMPROVE TEXT: ‘In conclusion, planting C.esculentus could decrease soil wind erosion and improve soil quality effectively, and our data solve the problems???:’ , could you explain this statement further/better, please?;
- CHECK TEXT: ‘3) Comprehensive economic benefits and benefits, 30cm was the recommended strip spacing in planting C.esculentus. H’.
Author Response
Dear reviewer:
Thank you for your comments to improve our manuscript. We appreciate the valuable suggestions from the review process. We have revised the manuscript by carefully addressing the suggestions. We believe the clarity of the manuscript is improved because of the changes. Please find below our detailed response to all comments; the comments are in italics. Included in the revised submission is Word file with changes visible with Track Changes (red color). A version with changes accepted is also included.
Sincerely.
CHECK TEXT: ‘great potential as an ecological-economic crop for oil extracting and sand fixation’.
Addressed. We rewrote the text, please see line 16.
CHECK WORDING: ‘Therefore, we conducted a field experiment to explore the response of organ yields of C.esculentus, soil wind erosion, and soil properties to different row spacing (30 cm, 60 cm, 90 cm) with bare land is control in desertified land???, Xinjiang, NW of China.’
Addressed. We checked the wrong and corrected it. Please see lines 19-21.
*IMPROVE ENGLISH: ‘The higher coverage of C.esculentus facilitates soil fixation and conservation, the amount of soil wind erosion in increasing row spacing treatments were 11.7, 3.1, and 4.9 times of that by the control plot, respectively’
Addressed. The English of the whole manuscript was improved, and the statement was changed. Please see lines 21-24.
CHECK TEXT: ‘The change of soil texture combined with soil nutrients and plant growth as soil nutrient concentrations, yields, and root nutrient concentrations are positively related to clay percentage and negatively related to sand particles’
Addressed. The text was checked, please see lines 26-29.
Introduction
REFERENCES, CHECK FORMATTING RULES: ‘…(Chen et al.2008; Paolo et al., 2013).’; and so on.
Addressed. The reference rules were changed. Please see the manuscript.
CHECK TEXT: ‘But there are some studies showed an inconsistent view, crop yields were higher in wider row spacing rather than in narrow row spacing and that might due to more intense interplant competition (Birhanu et al., 2018; York et al., 2015; Shao et al., 2019).’
Addressed. The text was rewritten, please see lines 56-58.
CHECK ENGLISH: ‘the crop in farmland have??? been rarely studied’
Addressed. English of the manuscript was improved, please see lines 64-65.
Experiment site and design
CHECK a possible ‘extra’ ‘)’: ‘15 kg·hm-2 of Potassium sulfate ≥52%)???,’
This error has been corrected, please see line 93.
CHECK TEXT, a ‘PERIOD’ appears to be missing: ‘The sampler is 1.0m high and sectioned into 10 openings???’
The time of sand sample setting was the same as sown, which state in line 96. And stepped sand collector has 10 openings like the picture in the attachment.
Sampling and measurements
ABBREVIATIONS, CHECK FORMATTING RULES: ‘The MBC and MBN were measured by the fumigation-extraction method (Vance et al., 1987).’
The formatting rules were changed, please see the manuscript.
Yields and nutrient concentrations response to strip spacing
The authors are invited to improve and deeply reformulate this “section” of the paper; see for instance, the ‘examples’ listed below:
Addressed. The section was improved including English and writing.
CHECK TEXT, IMPROVE WORDING AND ENGLISH: ‘With increasing row spacing, plant coverage significantly declined, which maximum at 30cm row spacing. Plant height in 30cm row spacing was 36.6% and 37.8% higher than in 60cm and 90cm. Plant density and tiller numbers were 2.28 and 1.64 times of 60cm, and 2.6 and 2.1 times of 90cm respectively. The forage, root, and tuber yields were 2.3, 5.6, and 2.9 times of 60cm, and 2.3, 6.1, and 4.0 times 30cm higher than 90cm respectively’;
Addressed. The words were changed, and the English improved. Please see lines 164-169.
*TABLES 1 and 2; FIGURES 1 and 2, CHECK CAREFULLY, improve and make all the necessary amendments: for instance, all ‘variables’ ((c), c, (b), b, (a), a, and CK) must be explained better to avoid misinterpretation and make its meaning ‘easy to read and understand’;
Addressed. We added the information about figures and tables. Please see Figures 1 and 2, and Tables 1 and 2.
Soil wind erosion and soil property response to strip spacing
CHECK TEXT: ‘Soil wind erosion under the canopy of C.esculentus was significantly lower than in control, with the lowest amount of soil wind erosion was observed at 30cm row spacing. The 60cm and 90cm row spacing caused 27.6 g/cm2 , and 17.5 g/cm2 soil wind erosion, corresponding to 3.8 and 1.6 times of that of the 30cm, respectively’;
Addressed. The text was changed and improved, please see lines 159-163.
CHECK ENGLISH: ‘Compare to control, pH in the canopy of C.esculentus decreased, and to a minimum at 30cm.’;
Addressed. The English of this sentence was improved, please see lines 177-179.
Plant growth response to different strip spacing
CHECK TEXT: ‘That implied that C.esculentus could adapt to high plant density and the extreme environment rather than plant density mainly in this region.’;
CHECK TEXT: ‘That might can be ascribed to higher root biomass exerting a dilutive effect on root nutrient concentrations (Yang et al., 2018).’
Addressed. These texts were changed and improved, please see lines 225-227, and 231-232.
Soil wind erosion and soil property response to different strip spacing
CHECK WORDING: ‘and the decrease in soil wind erosion is associated with an increase of fine particles inevitable’;
CHECK a ‘possible’ missing ‘period’: ‘sand particles decreased under the C.esculentus canopy??? Moreover,’;
CHECK TEXT: ‘Moreover, fine particles positively influence soil nutrient enrichment has been studied widely (Larney et al. 1998; Yan et al., 2011).’;
Addressed. These wrongs and texts were improved, please see lines 264-266, 267-269, and 272-273.
Conclusion
IMPROVE TEXT: ‘In conclusion, planting C.esculentus could decrease soil wind erosion and improve soil quality effectively, and our data solve the problems???:’ , could you explain this statement further/better, please?;
In the section, we rewrote the statement about how planting C.esculentus influence soil properties. Please see lines 286-288.
CHECK TEXT: ‘3) Comprehensive economic benefits and benefits, 30cm was the recommended strip spacing in planting C.esculentus. H’.
Addressed. The text was improved, please see lines 290-293.
Round 2
Reviewer 2 Report
All the suggestions from the reviewer have been adequately addressed by the authors in the revised manuscript.
Author Response
Thank you for your comments to improve our manuscript. We appreciate the valuable suggestions from the review process. We have revised the manuscript by carefully addressing the suggestions.
- English of this manuscript was improved by professional companies.
- We check that all references are relevant to the contents of the manuscript.
- Included in the revised submission is the Word file with changes visible with Track Changes (red color). We check the spell, and changes are highlighted in red.
Sincerely.
Reviewer 3 Report
1) The changes made have improved the paper: all the issues raised in my previous review have been addressed by the authors;
2) The new version appears to be better “academically and scientifically”.
3) However, authors are invited to pay attention to some minor text editing issues which must be addressed by them. See, for instance, the “example” listed below (underlined text):
- Line 298, REFERENCES, CHECK FORMATTING RULES: ‘(Tang et al., 2015)???. Therefore, further studies were needed to improve understanding of’.
Author Response
Thank you for your comments to improve our manuscript. We appreciate the valuable suggestions from the review process. We have revised the manuscript by carefully addressing the suggestions.
- English of this manuscript was improved by professional companies.
- We check that all references are relevant to the contents of the manuscript.
- Included in the revised submission is the Word file with changes visible with Track Changes (red color). We check the spell, and changes are highlighted in red.
Sincerely.
