Sustainable Production of Tomato Plants (Solanum lycopersicum L.) under Low-Quality Irrigation Water as Affected by Bio-Nanofertilizers of Selenium and Copper

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The concept of the paper is sound and the paper is well written. Minor suggestions:

Please define what does "low", "moderate" and "good" quality water mean. This remains unclear. 

Define the abbreviation AAS in M&M section. And describe the aas method. You could also devote a subsection to it since this is an important part of your paper. Yue even put the Se and Cu in the title. Basically, the titles in the results and discussion section should follow the subsections in the M&M. 

Author Response

Dear editor and reviewers,

Thank you very much for your constructive comments during the refereeing process of our manuscript sustainability-1605362 “Sustainable Production of Tomato Plants (Solanum lycopersicum L.) under Low-Quality Irrigation Water as Affected by Bio-Nanofertilizers of Selenium and Copper”. We really appreciate the enlightening comments from the reviewers, which have helped us improve the quality of our manuscript. All the comments have been very thoroughly and carefully considered and responded to in our revision with our best efforts. The red and yellow font in the manuscript is the revised content. Our response to the comments is enclosed at the end of this letter.

Thank you again for your valuable time that you contributed to our manuscript.

 

Response to Reviewer 1

The concept of the paper is sound and the paper is well written. Minor suggestions:

Response: Thanks so much for

Please define what does "low", "moderate" and "good" quality water mean. This remains unclear. 

Response: Change made in the line 107 and 108

Define the abbreviation AAS in M&M section. And describe the aas method. You could also devote a subsection to it since this is an important part of your paper. Yue even put the Se and Cu in the title. Basically, the titles in the results and discussion section should follow the subsections in the M&M. 

Response: AAS is the abbreviation of atomic absorption spectrometry, so change made in the line 175 and the brackets are put

Concerning the harmony between the titles in the results and discussion section, and the subsections in the M&M, Done and re-arranged, thanks!

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

The paper is dealing with Sustainable Production of Tomato Plants (Solanum lycopersicum L.) under Low-Quality Irrigation Water as Affected by Bio-Nanofertilizers of Selenium and Copper. Please see bellow my comments/suggestions/concerns:

Keywords must reflect the main characteristic words of the paper (usually reflected also in the title of the manuscript) in the best way to increase the paper's relevance and chances to be find when searching it after key words. So, for the actual title, I suggest the following keywords: sustainable production; tomato; irrigation; bio nanofertilizers; selenium; cooper.   L87-90. Please make the aim of study relevant. Responding to the following questions would be helpful: What makes special this study? Which is its novelty character or its special aspects? Why have the author chosen this topic? What differentiate this paper from others in the same/similar topic? Actual text is not relevant at all (there are tenths/hundreds of papers in the same topic), not being enough to justify the relevance and necessity of publishing your study.   As the unit of measure for volume in your research, please replace ml with mL (as Litter being the international unit of measure for volume). Please check/revise the entire manuscript in this regard.   Good sections 2. Materials and Methods and 3. Results.   4. Discussion section must be improved and more literature data must be added. I suggest to develop few ideas and improving a lot the references part (supporting/sustaining statements):

- which is the general impact of fertilisers using, considering also the climate changes and soil management practices [Bungau et al. Expatiating the impact of anthropogenic aspects and climatic factors on long term soil monitoring and management. Environ Sci. Pollut. Res. 2021, 202, 30528-30550. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-021-14127-7 ; Samuel, A.D., et al. Effects of Long Term Application of Organic and Mineral Fertilizers on Soil Enzymes. Revista de Chimie, 2018, 69(10), 2608-1612. https://doi.org/10.37358/RC.18.10.6590 ]. 

- if the authors have available data to compare short versus long term administering fertilisers? which is the impact on the tomato production? Moreover, it must be underlined that soil enzymology is one of the main characteristics when it is about soil proprieties [Samuel A.D.,et al. Enzymological and physicochemical evaluation of the effects of soil management practices. Rev. Chim. 2017, 68(10), 2243-2247. https://doi.org/10.37358/RC.17.10.5864 ; Samuel A.D., et al. Enzymatic indicators of soil quality.  J. Environ. Prot. Ecol. 2017, 18(3), 871-878].

- I suggest also adding a scheme summarising the main factors implied in Sustainable Production of Tomato Plants (considering here the soils properties, climate changes, management of the soil, fertilisers, etc.), where highlighting all aspects they consider relevant; it will increase the value of Discussion part.

- which are the strengths and weakness of your study (if there is any) - it should be mentioned as the last paragraph this section.

5. Conclusions sections must be shortened. No numerical values are needed as they are repetitive with the results part. Highlighting the main findings of your research (which must to cover/sustain the aim of the study) is enough.  

Author Response

Dear editor and reviewers,

Thank you very much for your constructive comments during the refereeing process of our manuscript sustainability-1605362 “Sustainable Production of Tomato Plants (Solanum lycopersicum L.) under Low-Quality Irrigation Water as Affected by Bio-Nanofertilizers of Selenium and Copper”. We really appreciate the enlightening comments from the reviewers, which have helped us improve the quality of our manuscript. All the comments have been very thoroughly and carefully considered and responded to in our revision with our best efforts. The red and yellow font in the manuscript is the revised content. Our response to the comments is enclosed at the end of this letter.

Thank you again for your valuable time that you contributed to our manuscript.

 

Response to reviewer 2:

Keywords must reflect the main characteristic words of the paper (usually reflected also in the title of the manuscript) in the best way to increase the paper's relevance and chances to be find when searching it after key words. So, for the actual title, I suggest the following keywords: sustainable production; tomato; irrigation; bio nanofertilizers; selenium; cooper.

Response: Thanks for your valuable comment! As a general rule: We did not only repeat any word already mentioned in the title again in the keywords list!!

Change made in the line 40 in the revised version

 L87-90. Please make the aim of study relevant

Response: Change made in the line 93 in the revised version

Please replace ml with mL (as Litter being the international unit of measure for volume).

Response: Change made in the four positions in the revised version

Good sections 2. Materials and Methods and 3. Results

Response: Thanks so much

4. Discussion section must be improved and more literature data must be added. I suggest to develop few ideas and improving a lot the references part (supporting/sustaining statements):

Response: Change made in the discussion section

if the authors have available data to compare short versus long-term administering fertilisers? which is the impact on the tomato production? Moreover, it must be underlined that soil enzymology is one of the main characteristics when it is about soil proprieties

Response: Unfortunately, we don’t have under the same condition

I suggest also adding a scheme summarising the main factors implied in Sustainable Production of Tomato Plants (considering here the soils properties, climate changes, management of the soil, fertilisers, etc.), where highlighting all aspects they consider relevant; it will increase the value of Discussion part

Response: A scheme is added, thanks!

- Which are the strengths and weakness of your study (if there is any) - it should be mentioned as the last paragraph this section.

Response: Change made, it mentioned in the conclusion section

 

5. Conclusions sections must be shortened. No numerical values are needed as they are repetitive with the results part. Highlighting the main findings of your research (which must to cover/sustain the aim of the study) is enough.

 

Response: Change made in the conclusion section in the revised version

 

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 3 Report

This article deals with the combination of two nanofertilizers called selenium and copper. In this process, it has used three types of water with different qualities. 

The content is well managed. However, since the quality evaluation criteria of tomatoes are different according to Tables 3 and 4, and also different results are obtained according to each of the criteria. Therefore, to achieve a treatment that can meet all criteria, use a multi-criteria method such as TOPSIS. The following reference is suggested

https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-021-17235-6 

In addition, it is suggested to use methods such as response surface methodology (RSM) to combine two nanocods or several others.

In addition, instead of using water quality as a quality treatment, use the amount of salt in it as an independent variable. This way you can calculate the response variable model and optimize them later. 

Author Response

Dear editor and reviewers,

Thank you very much for your constructive comments during the refereeing process of our manuscript sustainability-1605362 “Sustainable Production of Tomato Plants (Solanum lycopersicum L.) under Low-Quality Irrigation Water as Affected by Bio-Nanofertilizers of Selenium and Copper”. We really appreciate the enlightening comments from the reviewers, which have helped us improve the quality of our manuscript. All the comments have been very thoroughly and carefully considered and responded to in our revision with our best efforts. The red and yellow font in the manuscript is the revised content. Our response to the comments is enclosed at the end of this letter.

Thank you again for your valuable time that you contributed to our manuscript.

Response to reviewer 3:

The content is well managed. However, since the quality evaluation criteria of tomatoes are different according to Tables 3 and 4, and also different results are obtained according to each of the criteria. Therefore, to achieve a treatment that can meet all criteria, use a multi-criteria method such as TOPSIS. The following reference is suggested

Response: many thanks for your comment, but unfortunately, we did not never use this program before and this program is not free but needs a money to buy it, which my university does not support such program.

In addition, it is suggested to use methods such as response surface methodology (RSM) to combine two nanocods or several others.

Response: the same like the previous program, we are so sorry for that, but this is truth!!

In addition, instead of using water quality as a quality treatment, use the amount of salt in it as an independent variable. This way you can calculate the response variable model and optimize them later. 

Response: The main topic in this study is the water quality from different levels as a natural water NOT artificial water. The quality of water in general topic includes many parameters like salt amount or EC and many other parameters like pH, and the salinity value of each kind of used water is measured and listed in table. So, what we used in this study is definitely suitable for the natural source NOT artificial source because this natural source is more reliable compared to artificial one!

Therefore, using water quality is the best (as a comprehensive parameter) compared to amount of salt! Hoping our point oof viewer is clear now!

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

Aim of the study is not correctly reshaped. 2 questions cannot be considered as aim of the study, bur responding to them.

Under each figure please check and explain ALL abbreviations used on the figures.

Regarding fertilisers and soil enzymology, few relevant and very well cited papers have been omitted - please check and refer to them: Bungau et al. Expatiating the impact of anthropogenic aspects and climatic factors on long term soil monitoring and management. Environ Sci. Pollut. Res. 2021, 202, 30528-30550. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-021-14127-7 ; Samuel A.D.,et al. Enzymological and physicochemical evaluation of the effects of soil management practices. Rev. Chim. 2017, 68(10), 2243-2247. https://doi.org/10.37358/RC.17.10.5864 ; Samuel A.D., et al. Enzymatic indicators of soil quality. J. Environ. Prot. Ecol. 2017, 18(3), 871-878

At the final of the paper, the Authors' contributions was forgotten.

Author Response

Thank you very much for the valuable time that you contributed to our manuscript.

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Aim of the study is not correctly reshaped. 2 questions cannot be considered as aim of the study, but responding to them.

Response: changed and added to the right position in the conclusion section, thanks!

Under each figure please check and explain ALL abbreviations used on the figures.

Response: done, thanks!

 

Regarding fertilizers and soil enzymology, a few relevant and very well cited papers have been omitted - please check and refer to them:

Bungau et al. Expatiating the impact of anthropogenic aspects and climatic factors on long-term soil monitoring and management. Environ Sci. Pollut. Res. 2021, 202, 30528-30550. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-021-14127-7 ;

Samuel A.D., et al. Enzymological and physicochemical evaluation of the effects of soil management practices. Rev. Chim. 2017, 68(10), 2243-2247. https://doi.org/10.37358/RC.17.10.5864 ;

Samuel A.D., et al. Enzymatic indicators of soil quality. J. Environ. Prot. Ecol. 2017, 18(3), 871-878

Response: the three refs. Already cited and added in the revised MS, thanks!

 

At the final of the paper, the Authors' contributions was forgotten.

Response: added, thanks!