Legume Ecotypes and Commercial Cultivars Differ in Performance and Potential Suitability for Use as Permanent Living Mulch in Mediterranean Vegetable Systems
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Review of the manuscript: Legume ecotypes and commercial cultivars differ in performance and potential suitability for use as permanent living mulch in Mediterranean vegetable systems
The manuscript I was reviewing examined the suitability of commercially available legumes and ecotypes of one particular legume for a permanent living mulch system in vegetable production. For this purpose, the authors measured several plant traits like height, biomass production and self-seeding capacity as well as the influence of the respective legumes/ecotypes on weed suppression. Based on these the cultivars and ecotypes were evaluated to serve as a living mulch plant.
1)The manuscript is well written, although the English language could use some improvements e.g. line 333 or line 343. Also, the authors utilized the word “resulted” in my opinion far too often. The content is definitely novel and very interesting. The experimental design is sound, I am just missing some little things to improve it (see specific comments). I have some issues with the structure here and there and a statistical analysis should be extended, therefore I pledge for minor revisions.
2)In the abstract it does not become clear that ecotypes were only tested for M. polymorpha. Also, I’m missing an outlook or a conclusion in the end of the abstract like the combination of Antas and Haifa for a pLM mixture.
3)In the end of the Introduction I am missing the specific hypotheses that the authors wanted to examine.
4)In the materials and methods section the plot size seems a bit small, but for vegetable trials it might be ok. What I am really missing is the vegetables! In the introduction the authors stated that the suitability is largely dependent on weed suppression and crop performance. While the first is addressed in the experiments, the second one is totally missing, however it is addressed in the discussion section for further testing of the system. For this setup, a screening as a first step makes sense. I’m curious to know the result of these ongoing trials.
5)The authors screened a lot of legume species, cultivars and ecotypes and compared it in terms of weed control to an untreated control. I would suggest a treated control reflecting the “current cropping system” (herbicides) for further studies, which would make the experiment comparable to practical convevtional farming. However, I understand that in this situation no herbicide control was necessary for the research question.
6)The statistical section is missing a description for the correlations given in line 196, 262 and 274 – e.g was it kendall, pearson or spearman?
7)I congratulate the authors for a very detailed and interesting discussion. Yet, the authors assume that height of the legumes is a trait reflecting “the most relevant characteristic” for competition with the crop. I highly doubt that. Because e.g. belowground competition for water and nutrients (except for N) especially in 2019 would have been high if a crop would have been established and vegetables are very sensitive in terms of water or nutrient deficiency. Maybe the authors have encountered this on neighbouring fields and could include some statement in the discussion?
8)Between lines 381 and 393 the commercial cultivars and ecotypes are compared. Often the reasoning disrespects either a cultivar or an ecotypes and generalizes the results for one group. I propose to make this section a little less enthusiastic about ecotypes.
9)Please recheck the following items throughout the entire text, I found some missfits.
DM and DW – e.g. line 210-216 uses DW, but table 3 (which this text is referring to is labelled DM)
Spelling of cultivars and species names is sometimes not correct – e.g. table 3 “Antas” line 233 “Anatas”
10)Specific comments:
009-polymorpha is missing an “r”
012- add “ecotypes of M. polymorpha”
025- “and are then”
029- Instead of talking about the tillage method, I would use this sentence to describe the seeding/transplanting technique
042-043-the sentence is not well linked. I did not understand e.g. how transplanting is directly controlling weeds (the point in time is definitely dependent on soil and weather), because the tillage beforehand does that and not the transplanting
054-substitute “result” with “be”
067- focuses
138-please add the Code for control also to table 1 and 3
075- “large variability” -that does not seem a good charcteristic if they need to be commercialized as a pLM after practical trials, Maybe you can address this problem here
076- substitute “Texas” with “United States”, because you are listing only countries afterwards
118- were these quadrats placed randomly in the plots? Did you account for edge effects of these, quite small, plots?
122-126 – was the estimate based on the whole plot area?
133-136- is displayed in my manuscript like “divided by”, please change to simple “minus” signs
139- the experimental setup is not clearly communicated, was it equivalent to experiment1? Plot size? Design? Repetitions?
159- I would prefer the units in the text following the equation, this makes the formula better understandable at one look
Table 2- contains abbreviations that are nowhere explained (presumably regions in Italy) like (SI) or (VT)
198- there is no Tsub(c) given in the tables
201- monocotyledonous and diycotyledonous
Figure 3- although not significant I would add the letters to the monocotyledonous weeds in May 2019, that makes the graph uniform; give also the test used for comparison in the end of the label
Table 3- label put (DW±SE …)if it was SE otherwise sd; “Different letters (a-d)”
239- I would like here a correlation of canopy ground cover with weed biomass
242-247 -all data mentioned in table 5 is also in the text. Either reduce data mentioned in the text or add more numbers for May 2019 and delete table 5
Table 4- letters range from a-d (see comment on table 3)
Table 5- heading needs more information e.g “in May 2018 and 2019”
256- “both” please add subspecies to T. subterraneum
Figure4- I like the spider plots very much, they are a good visualization of the data
266-I am missing details about May 2018? Not significant at all?
272-264.69
276- how good is the correlation?
Table 6- add significance levels or a legend for ***, ** and * as well as n.s.; letters range from a-b (see comment on table 3); heading should contain also “and the difference between years (deltaM18-M19)
286-293 is better suited for the discussion, I suggest somewhere around line 352
300- “better adapted” is a presupposition that is made, but was not explicitly tested! Please rewrite to avoid generalization here.
301- “perform better in terms of soil coverage” and you are referring to the ecotypes of M. polymorpha, but it was not given in the manuscript that you measured soil cover also for those!
309- replace “compromise” with “trade-off”
312- first step of
321-“was not correlated” this was not explicitly tested in the experiment, the authors only assume this. Please state this differently
336-This problem will carry on and weeds instead of LM will take over the system
341- does Hiltbrunner give a reason why? Might be nice to know
350-364 very nice section to read and interesting approach
365-371 please improve English language especially here
381- that statement is not true! Scimitar had the highest SSC, I guess the authors were referring to that. If not, they should specify what they mean with “persistence”
389- also one of the ecotypes! Tarquinia (VT) please mention that.
418- “contemporary” what does that mean exactly? Please specify.
Author Response
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Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
For in-text review, see attached.
General comment:
Positive: the study is well researched
Negative:
- the paper is way too long; needs to be cut by at least 3 or 5 pages
- a very lengthy and detailed information, perhaps more than needed, in methods and materials section
- too many scientific names with no common names provided; i found it confusing at times
- tables are cluttered with long captions
- use only tables that are directly linked to the papers; rest can be provided upon request
Comments for author File: Comments.pdf
Author Response
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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 3 Report
The manuscript reports on aspects of sustainable agriculture by evaluating the effects of an intercropping system on plant productivity and the relationships and interconnectivity between cropping systems with an ultimate focus on weed control. The study is well designed and the presentation was well thought out and articulated.
See the PDF version for further comments.
Comments for author File: Comments.pdf
Author Response
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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 4 Report
The paper is highly scientific, objectives clear and concise (Lines 5-8 and 79-81, and methodology on point. However, I see few citations needed in some places, missing many commas (,) between sentences, some sentences not connected or a little confusing. Also, why are there missing letters (a, b) above error bars on some figures for consistency. See the comments below:
1) Line 15-16 under the keywords, semi-colons (;)need to replace commas after Dead mulch: Organic farming; Weed control; Legume screening; Dead mulch; Clover; Bur clover; Reduced Tillage
2) Lines 18-20 (the first sentence in the Introduction section) and 57-59 (middle of the introduction) need citations: Lines 18-20 ...nitrogen fertilizers [cite]; Lines 57-59 .......and they form a dense mat, covering the soil during winter [cite]
3) Line 34, 49, and 116, do you mean LM or pLM ??
4) Put citations [7,8] on line 37 at the end of the sentence like this: ....herbicide applications [7,8]; also on line 41, put the citation[11] at the end of the sentence like this: at the moment of application[11,12].
5) At the end of line 49, take out the period before the citation like this: crop [20].
6) Put a period after at line 52 after the citation [18] and start a new sentence like this: Trifolium incarnatum, which is less suitable for this purpose,....
7) Sentence on line 67-69 need revision, not connected: Breeding activities and research focus .........high biomass, they have an erect.......
8)Line 76, where is Texas ? can we replace Texas with United States and write like this: ...largely used in the United States[24], France [25], and Itlay [26,27].
9) Line 118: quadrats or quadrates ?? Line 150, fix 40oC by closing the space, same wise line 206: (77% and 23%; not 77 % or 23 %, close the spaces.
10) Line 218, delete the word "and" after RD84, it should flow like this: Halifa and RD84 was significantly higher.......
11)Line 330, add the word "the" between the words "from" and "literature," and write like this: ...(September 2018) confirm finding from the literature that......
12) Why do figures 3 and 5 missing letters (a, b) on error bars for consistency. Also, I hope figure 2 is more visible to read before final publication.
13) Finally, commas are needed in each of the following sentences or lines: Line 25: ...chemical interventions,
Line 31: ...limitation of soil erosion, and...
Line 45: ...vegetable systems,
Line 46: ...tomato,
Line 52: accumulation,
Line 59: the need for reseeding,
Line 62: during the summer,
Line 71: height,
Line 77: France [25],
Figure 1. Monthly.....(maximum, minimum, and mean)
Line 106: Legumes,
Line 114: (.....7 May 2019),
Lines 122-123: ..30 April, and 7 May, and during 2019,
Line 156: 23, 41, and 71 days after........
Line 161: ..in a certain area, and....
Line 173: M19,
Line 188: M19,
Lines 196, 198, 199, 202 need commas somewhere: May 2019,; Tsub(b),
and Tsub(c) reduced....' 21.59, and 60.04...., respectively; weed biomass,
while....
Line 219 (May 2018), while M. polymorpha
Line 252: canopy height,
Line 256: canopy ground cover, and canopy height. In the second year,
both .......
Line 270: In May 2019, the ecotypes.....
Line 295: Overall, in this study, perennial legume showed.....capacity, while
annual.....
Line 303: ....of the living mulch [39], and maximum....
Line 321: In this study, earliness......
Line 324: weed control, but their reduced.......
Line 332: in comparison with the control, while dead mulches
Line 344: of living mulch, the density of ....
Line 356, 369, 370, 379, 402 (two commas), and 434 need commas somewhere, I hope you will locate it easily.
Line 374: Put a semicolon after the word "and" and write like this: capacity of legumes and; ii) biomass production in May 2018.
Like 434: use the word "as" instead of "like" and write like this: (earliness, soil............, weed suppression) as demonstrated in this study.
Hope my comments helps in revising the paper. Thank you.
Author Response
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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
