A Comparative LCA of Aeroponic, Hydroponic, and Soil Cultivations of Bioactive Substance Producing Plants
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
the draft titled "A comparative LCA of aeroponic, hydroponic and soil cultiva-2 tions of bioactive plants" by Wimmerova et al. investigated the biomass production and active substance production rates under traditional soil plantation and waterless cultivation modes, then compared the overall advantages and disadvantages in biomass and active substances production by using LCA modeling. Overall the study is meaningful, and the topic well fits the scope of the journal. However, there are many technical issues that must be carefully addressed before next round of review. also, strongly suggest to find someone to carefully proofread the the whole manuscript.
title, change 'bioactive plants' to 'bioactive substance producing plants'
abstract, this part needs significant revision. important information including research methods, major research results, as well major conclusions.
introduction, important questions needed here, including what is bioactive substances? why plantation of bioactive substances producing plants is important? what is LCA, why try to apply LCA in current study? what is the current status of the application of LCA in soilless cultivation?
line109, briefly describe both terms, FloraGrow and FloraMicro
line111, the dot is not comma, put the dot in the exact central location between mS and L-1
line114-115, what is the distance between 50L level and 20L level? my understanding is that tha aeroponic mode could be achieved only when the plant roots could reach 20L level. please clarify.
Fig.1 put a scale bar in the image to better understand the size of the system.
line127, italize the latin names of plant species where needes. check throughout the whole text (and some figures) and do the correction.
line133, what is light intensity (e.g. in Lux) at the plant height? change warried to varied.
line137, change extract to extracts
line159, change their to they
Table1, do some basic statistical analysis to clearly show whether the difference is significance for a give parameter between the two cultivation modes. chang Kg to kg.
Fig.2, put a scale bar in the image to better understand the size of the system.
Table2&3&4&5&6, put the standard error if any.
Fig.3, put a scale bar in the image to better understand the size of the system.
Table6, hard to understand, please adjust the table according to Table 7.
Table7, what is 1,4-DCB? what is its source for soil and soilless cultivation?
Table8, hard to understand, please adjust the table according to Table 7.
conclusion section, change conclusion to conclusions. this part needs significant revision. there is no major conclusions made based on the analysis of the data obtained in the work. please insert or sumarize major conclusions obtained from the current study.
Author Response
Authors thank for all comments which helped to improve the manuscript. Please see the attached file with our response.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
The paper briefly and detailed described the comparative aeroponic, hydroponic, and soil methods, however:
1. Can be described better with an additional figure of the framework of the dataset, method, experiment, and result gained,
2. Paper technically the manuscript is written technically and in detail on the bio-chemical agriculture,
3. Need to be detailed how is the experimental method?,
4. The working stages of the methodology are not so clear,
5. What parameters do you want to achieve?
6. Need to be a detail for parameter base for comparison of the experiment and the results as introduced in the manuscript title,
7. Comparative LCA is not briefly described in the abstract and at the beginning of the running text of the manuscript.
Author Response
Authors thank for all comments which helped to improve the manuscript. Please see the attached file with our response.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
Overall, most of the concerns were well addressed during the first round of review. However, there are still issues, please dress them. Try to insert a scale bar into the images of the plants (roots).
the major issue is grammar, please find a more professional people to proof read the draft again.
line12-14, keep an eye one the tense, ... study shows.....and compares... the sentence was bit long, be concise, or separate into two sentences.
line16 and line18, it is awkward that us the plant as the subject of the sentence. please rephrase both sentences.
line65-66, some words were underline, please remove those marks
line110 change systems to system
line113 change perform to performed
Author Response
Please see the attached file. Thank you.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.docx
Reviewer 2 Report
Thank you for the revision submitted. All the issues were resolved.
Author Response
Please see the attached file. Thank you.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
