Use of Vegetable Residues and Cover Crops in the Cultivation of Maize Grown in Different Tillage Systems
, Paula Ioana Moraru 2, Adrian Ioan Pop 2 and Teodor Rusu 2,*
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
The article is logically well built. The research design is clear and scientifically proved. All the work is written in a clear manner.
In all the text are a lot of shallow grammatical mistakes, some of them represented in the following review. It would be a good idea to use software like Grammarly or other for full-text correction.
Chapter 1.
Line 8. Moldboard - the correct writing in American English. Mould plough - ploughing with moldboard (mixing of British and American English).
Chapter 2.
Line 165. Gulle type - please, specify what did you mean.
Line 167. Anaerobic - just a mistyping.
The principles of fertilizers’ doze choice are unclear. It needs to put more details about how you chose the dozes and how it is connected with NPK content in the soil.
Chapter 3.
2.3. In the field experiment are three varieties of fertilization and all of them include plant residues. Please, put more details about the use of plant residues or highlight it in the text.
Author Response
Dear Review,
Thank you for your comments and recommendations for improving our paper.
We have submitted the paper to the MDPI specialized English language editing service and have made all the required improvements.
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.docx
Reviewer 2 Report
In particular, the following necessary improvements are:
The complete manuscript needs to be revised according to Functional the instructions for authors.
It is recommended to accurately review the English form, the language is not fluent. In addition, many technical terms are incorrectly reported; some examples are: “humus” instead of “soil organic carbon or matter”, “dust” instead of “silt” and so on. This is a serious problem and the Authors are required to deeply and carefully check and revise their manuscript.
Please check the words; some examples are: benefits is not benefts; favorable is not favourabile; characteristic is not characterists, etc.
Please check the correspondence of references for example: Page 2, line 84 -87, in the reference “Malschi, D. Wheat Pest Entomofauna in Climatic Changes Conditions of Central Transylvania. The 20thSIEEC Conference, May 2007, Cluj-Napoca. Section: Global Climate Change, Fauna Change and Entomofaunistics. Universities Babes-Bolyai Cluj-Napoca. Entomologica Romanica, 2, 2007, p: 185-193”, the Author reports the influence of Grain Pest Entomofauna in climate change conditions and not the influence of the soil tillage system on soil physic-chemical properties.
Page 3, lines 114 and 119: "MMB 220-240 g", what does this abbreviation mean? thousand grains of weight, please explain the meaning of the acronym.
Paragraph: “The research was made on a type of soil representative for the research area, respectively Chernozem. The properties of the soil from the experimental site, at a depth of 0–20 cm are as follows: clay content (<0.002 mm) 56.07%, fine dust (0.002–0.05 mm) 19.15%, dust (0.05–0.02 mm) 9.15%, fine sand (0.02–0.2 mm) 14.9%, coarse sand (0.2–2.0 mm) 0.73%, texture clayey loam, bulk density 1.13 g cm-3, total porosity 58%, humus content 3.73 % and pH of 6.81, total nitrogen content 0.205 mg kg-1, mobile phosphorus 35 mg kg-1, and mobile potassium 320 mg kg-1. The soil samples for the chemical analyses were sampled at a depth of 0–20 cm. The potentiometric method was used to establish pH, and the Walkley–Black method was used for humus; total nitrogen was established using the Kjeldhal method; phosphorous and the content of potassium was established through the Egner–Riehm–Domingo extraction method.”
Response:
- clay content (<0.002 mm) 56.07% - the value appears high;
- change “dust” in “silt”;
- texture clayey loam - in the USDA textural classification the soil clay content 56.07% corresponds to a textural class “clay”.
- change “humus” in “organic matter”;
- total nitrogen content 0.205 mg kg-1 – incoherent value with the organic matter content;
- “the Walkley - Black method was used for humus” - with the Walkley - Black method organic matter is determined, not humus. See: Walkley, A., Black, I.A. (1934). An examination of the Degtjareff method for determining soil organic matter, and a proposed modification of the chromic acid titration method. Soil Sci, 37, 29–38
Author Response
Dear Review,
Thank you for your comments and recommendations for improving our paper.
We have submitted the paper to the MDPI specialized English language editing service and have made all the required improvements.
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Reviewer 3 Report
Reviewer’s Comments:
Comments to the Author
Review of the manuscript "Use of vegetable residues and cover crops in the cultivation of maize grown in different tillage systems". The manuscript brings out information of the alternative use of vegetable residues and cover crop in a soil tillage systems related to fertilization. Despite the fact that the text may be addressing the exciting topic of underlined the fact that for maize, a minimum tillage with chisel in autumn + disk harrow in spring + planting can be considered as an alternative to the standard tillage method. However, there are major inputs which the authors can include to improve the manuscript;
Abstract
It is poorly written with poor grammatical English, with a lot editorial/spelling mistakes and also, it doesn’t bring out justification or rationale for conducting the research and objectives. The sentences are too long to be easily readable. The author should provide a crisp objective for the study. The abstract needs to have a summary of all the four sections (Introduction, Methods, Results and conclusion) which does not come out clearly.
Introduction:
The section is very difficult to read and understand. Also, there are many grammatical and spelling errors; thus the author should consider contacting an English reviewer to improve the contents. Also, the background doesn’t provide sufficient literature and justification of the study and the approaches used in the study plus the previous studies on the same subject. The author does not display knowledge background literature on the subject matter of the study. There is a lot of unsupported statement in terms of references. There is no logical flow from one paragraph to the other. The context of the research study and the objectives /research question or hypothesis is not clear.
Methodology:
The flow of the materials and methods is not that crisp. The background information of the materials of study is not detailed. This needs more clarity. Authors describe the hybrids using different traits. Not even references. In the Data analysis section, the author report about determination of the chemical composition of maize grains was done by using standardized methods and techniques that is a spectrophotometer. Generally the section is hard to be replicated/repeatable
Results:
The section is not written in a way that makes it easier to read. Also, the results are not based on the hypothesis rather than narrative. For example was “Climate conditions and the impact on maize cultivation technology” part of the objective of the study?
Discussion:
The author concentrate more on the reporting the results than comparisons with other studies, but it does not bring out the implications of the current findings that will translate to the study's overall goal. Hence, the author needs to work on this section.
Conclusion
Still the authors capitalize on reporting the results than concluding there finding.
References
There is need to cite some of the statement written since they aren’t authors findings.
General content
The manuscript is not easy to understand and the methods used to analyze the data are shallow to make a conclusive decision. Despite this decision, the manuscript is not suitable for publication in Sustainability, though it has portrayed novelty. The authors may enrich the study to resubmit.
Author Response
Dear Review,
Thank you for your comments and recommendations for improving our paper.
We have submitted the paper to the MDPI specialized English language editing service and have made all the required improvements.
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Reviewer 4 Report
The article is very interesting, but it contains a few shortcomings:
- In chapter 2.1.
where did the characteristics of the varieties come from?
- In what fertilizers was NPK used?
- What was the determinant of the date of the maize harvest?
black spot at the back of the kernel? 4. Table 6 Protein yield or%, fear yield or%?
- Table 7 is the same as in table 6
- What was the criterion for selecting maize for cultivation?
FAO, grain type etc,
- Correct the topic of the article: the topic cannot start with harvest residues, because the first is how the soil is cultivated
- In Conclusions, there is no global recommendation, there is only a local recommendation
- Reference: 50, 51, 54, 55, 56 are too old (over 20 years)
Author Response
Dear Review,
Thank you for your comments and recommendations for improving our paper.
We have submitted the paper to the MDPI specialized English language editing service and have made all the required improvements.
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Round 2
Reviewer 2 Report
In particular, the following necessary improvements are:
Please check the English form.
Page 3, line 123: change sediment grain in semident grain.
Page 3, line 145: total nitrogen content 205 mg kg-1 – incoherent value with the organic matter content. The value could be 2050 mg kg-1 or 2.05 g kg-1.
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Reviewer 3 Report
Reviewer’s Comments:
Comments to the Author
Review of the manuscript "Use of vegetable residues and cover crops in the cultivation of maize grown in different tillage systems". The manuscript brings out information of the alternative use of vegetable residues and cover crop in a soil tillage systems related to fertilization. The manuscript is addressing the exciting topic of underlining the fact that for maize, minimum tillage with chisel in autumn + disk harrow in spring + planting can be considered as an alternative to the standard tillage method. The major inputs that were suggested to be addressed by the authors has been improved but the section of Methodology, Discussion and conclusion still needs to be worked on as suggested earlier so that the manuscript can be suitable for public utilization;
Abstract
The editorials have improved grammatical English, with all editorial/spelling mistakes corrected. The purpose for conducting the research and objectives is now crisp. The sentences are now easily readable. The four sections (Introduction, Methods, Results and conclusion) has been elaborated clearly.
Introduction:
The section has been improved and is now easy to read and understand. Also, the grammatical and spelling errors have been improved. Literature has been improved with relevant references provided. Now there is a logical flow from one paragraph to the other. The context of the research study and the objectives /research question or hypothesis is now clear.
Methodology:
The flow of the materials and methods is not that crisp. The background information of the materials of study is not detailed. This needs more clarity. Authors describe the hybrids using different traits. Not even references. In the Data analysis section, the author's report about the determination of the chemical composition of maize grains was done by using standardized methods and techniques that as a spectrophotometer. Generally, the section is hard to be replicated/repeatable
Results:
The section is not written in a way that makes it easier to read. Also, the results are not based on the hypothesis rather than the narrative. For example, was “Climate conditions and the impact on maize cultivation technology” part of the objective of the study?
Discussion:
The author concentrated more on improving the grammar than responding to the earlier raised issues; i.e the section is more on reporting the results than comparisons with other studies, but it does not bring out the implications of the current findings that will translate to the study's overall goal. Hence, the author needs to work on this section.
Conclusion
Still, the authors capitalize on reporting the results than concluding their finding.
References
There is a need to double-check the cited statement.
General content
The manuscript is not easy to understand and the methods used to analyze the data are shallow to make a conclusive decision. The authors need to concentrate on improving the Methodology, Discussion and conclusion section. Despite this decision, the manuscript is not suitable for publication at its current state in Sustainability, though it has portrayed novelty. The authors may enrich the study to resubmit.
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
