Fodder Yield, Quality and Growth of Chia (Salvia hispanica L.) as Affected by Sowing Density and Top-Dressing Nitrogen Fertilization
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
The manuscript entitled: „Fodder yield, quality and growth of chia (Salvia hispanica L.) as affected by sowing density and top-dressing nitrogen fertilization” is a good designed and written and can be advised for publication in the current stage.
Author Response
We thank reviewer 1 for his/her appreciation.
Reviewer 2 Report
I would like to see the results of animal nutrition trials with forage chia that are supposed to be conducted in the near future, and the impact of such type of forage on animal welfare.
Author Response
We agree with reviewer 2. This is why we mentioned the issue in the conclusions.
Reviewer 3 Report
Manuscript ID: agronomy-937727
Fodder yield, quality and growth of chia (Salvia hispanica L.) as affected by sowing density and nitrogen fertilization
This interesting and exhaustive paper investigates the fodder yield, quality and growth of Salvia hispanica L. grown at four sowing density and two fertilization levels and sampled at three different stages of growth.
Coming from a two-year field experiment, a plenty of productive and qualitative data are presented supporting useful and novel information on the forage potential at high latitude of this rediscovered ancient crop.
Minor comments and suggestions for improvement
Introduction
Authors might consider reducing introduction text as general details and information on Chia, which are not strictly related to the presented data, are already available in previous article and reviews as in the abundant reference list. The suggestion is to privilege contents dealing with the specific paper aims. For example, text from L 37 to L 42 might be removed. DM yield information can be moved to the discussion section…
Materials and methods
L 124 (and thereinafter) Plant biomass… shoot biomass is preferable as it refers to aboveground biomass only.
Results
From figure 2 onwards,
please, use the same number of decimals in each figure, do not use comma before decimals, etc.
Figure 5
g kg-1 as unit is wrong according to the used scale!
In text at L235 protein content is reported as percentage. Please, correct and standardize the unit.
Additionally, crude protein instead of protein should be used, according to the analytical method.
Figure 8
a,b,c, letters indicate each single graph within figure 8. The same letters are also mentioned in the figure caption.
Previous figures need to be standardized as in figure 8
Figure 9
a,b,c,d,e, letters indicate each single graph within figure 9. In contrast with figure 8, the a,b,c,d,e letters are mentioned in the figure caption.
All figures must be standardized.
(L 108 The crop was hand-108 weeded)
Weed issue need to be addressed giving some additional information, considering the very different plant density. What about weeds presence at the two different sowing rates D1 vs D4? Did you find any differences for weeds?
Discussion
Several times, scientific names do not follow common names at the first mention
throughout the manuscript: faba bean, sunflower, soybean, birdsfoot trefoil, salad burnet, caraway, alfalfa, cow-pea (at least).
L 457 Fertilization significantly affected fiber content.
please, explain better (how fiber content was affected?) as for proteins below, also giving a possible explanation.
L 340 Aegilops comosa Sm. in Sibth. and Sm. var comosa is it right?
4.3. Forage quality
The content of this section must follow the same order of presented results, i.e. starting with text from L 427 to L 460 and followed by L 401 to 426.
L 446-447 Proteins increase on average by 15% in D4 compared to D1 (average by growth stage).
The above statement is correct.
However, my suggestion is to remember/mention the crude protein amount per hectare (in kg ha-1), which is very similar between D1 and D4 (about 500 in kg ha-1 of CP according to my gross calculation).
Therefore, the suggested final message could be:
Different crude protein content but similar crude protein yield per hectare between D1 and D4.
Author Response
We thank reviewer 3 for his/her appreciation and for comments.
We responded to all issues raised in the review report as detailed in the attached file.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.docx
