Cover Crops Affect Performance of Organic Scarlotta Seedless Table Grapes Under Plastic Film Covering in Southern Italy

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The main objective of the present research was to study three different cover crops management strategies in an organic table grape vineyard production system. The manuscript text being clear and mostly well written.
This paper presents a study of the effects of three inter-row soil management strategies on several vine parameter and grape composition:
1 - (TR) inter-rows space cultivated with subterranean clover crop vegetation,
2 - (V) inter-rows space occupied with common vetch incorporated in the soil as green manure,
3 - (RC) inter-rows space sown with common vetch flattened by roller crimper technique obtaining a living mulch.

The statistical model used is not cited in the text and should be clearly stated. Moreover, in the tables and figures in the discussion, there is no clear separation of the two growing seasons. A two-way ANOVA model with interaction or a separate one-way ANOVA for each growing season would be appropriate. Furthermore, it is not clear what was the number of experimental units per treatment in this study. (Each experimental unit consisting of a group of consecutive rows - because of the border effects introduced by the use of machinery - to which one treatment is applied and from which several sampling units are collected.) The authors must mention how many experimental units per treatment were actually used.

In tables 3, 4 and 5, it is not clear which values belong to each growing season. Therefore, it is not clear if the results for the soil management strategies in the two growing seasons where discordant, or the results were similar in both (no interaction). The table captions should indicate that the numbers represent averages and also indicate the number of replicates (n) used to compute these averages. The standard deviations should also be presented in the tables.

In Line 100, the coordinates given (40°47’48” N 16°55’24” E) do not correspond to a vineyard, but to a building in “Gioia del Colle”.

In Line 197, Table 2: What is the meaning of “UR media”? Is this the Relative Humidity (RH)?

In Line 211, Table 3: “T” should read “TR”. The same for Tables 4-8, and Figures 1-3. The same in the text, where “T” appears instead of “TR”.

In Line 243, Figure 1: The bars in the chart represent averages (the number of replicates for the computation of these averages should be mentioned in the caption). And the error bars represent what? (The same observations for Figures 2 and 3.) Again, like on the Tables, it is not clear how similar the treatment effects were in both growing seasons. Moreover, this is an experiment with a perennial crop and because the treatments are not randomly assigned to the plots each year, it is not possible to use years as a replication of the experiment.

 

Author Response

Please find our response in the word document attached.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

Review on agronomy-745128 ‘Cover crops affect grapevine performance of organic Scarlotta Seedless® table grape under plastic film covering in southern Italy’.

This manuscript evaluates the soil management strategies in organic grape vine farms in Italy by incorporating different cover crop termination methods. While the study objectives are important and interesting, the way of analyzing data and presenting/discussing them is not clear enough. The manuscript is not scientifically sound, clearly written, and justified for the publication.

 

Some of the more detail comments:

Title

How about “Cover crops affect performance of organic Scarlotta Seedless® table grape under plastic film covering in southern Italy”, or something like this? (but it must be clearly supported by your results too).

 

Also, I don’t think you need ® in your title.

 

Abstract:

First, you need one or two sentences in your background/research justifications.

L14, 21 and more. It is “cover crops” but “cover crop management”. 2015-2016 growing season?

L16-17, not clear how cover crop was terminated.

L19, in terms of?

L20 what is soil strategies?

Conclusion in the abstract section does not seem reasonable. E.g., L25, did you mean “off-farm synthetic N fertilizers”? If your study is focused on organic farming, then mention this at the beginning.

 

Introduction:

L32-38, very long sentence. Also, pay attention to sentence structure, grammar, and parallelism.

L41, what is “intensive vineyard clean cultivation”? There should be a better term.

L43, as much as?

L45-47, how relevant is this for grave vine industry?

L47-50, rewrite the sentence (incorrect grammar).

L51, 56, 143, and many more, unnecessary commas.

L72-75, unclear sentences.

L77-79, confusing sentences.

L82, what do you mean by “thanks mainly to their radiometric properties”?

L84-87, there is no transition here to start organic grapes. Rewrite.

L88, “these aspects”? Not clear.

Both abstract and introduction sections should be revised.

 

Methods:

L97-101. Long and awkward sentence. Rewrite.

L108, “Sugranineteen® (Scarlotta seedless® brand) ”.. you don’t need to repeat the details.

…etc………….Check all.

Methods section is randomly written. There is no sequence of order. Also pay attention to grammars. Long and confusing sentences. You listed so many variables but there is nothing in methods on how they were analyzed. You should specify models and its parameters clearly.

 

Results and Discussion:

L181-183, should go to the methods section?

L184-188, how important is this in your result/discussion section? Can you include table 1 in supplementary file? Also same for table 2.

L206, you mentioned “cover crop management” here as opposed to “cover crops management” before. Be consistent and correct.

L207-210, rewrite the sentence.

L217-218, L232-234 etc, is this your discussion? It is not clear and complete.

Eight tables and three figures are little too many in the results section. Unnecessary tables can go to the supplementary section.

Discussion is very weak and incomplete. May be separate it from the results section and make it stronger including more relevant studies to confirm or contrast your study results.

 

Conclusion:

 Lots of grammatical errors (as before) and awkward sentences.

 

References:

Lots of inconsistencies. E.g., you don’t have words like Vol. No. in ref 1 but in ref.2!

Check them all!

Author Response

Please find our response in the word document attached.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

Soil analysis data on Table 4:

No clear information is given for the two soil sampling dates. The authors refer in lines 317-318 a time span “from beginning to the end of research”, and use the same unclear time reference on table 4. Also, in the “Materials and Methods” section, no information is given for the soil sampling procedure nor for the analysis of total nitrogen and organic matter.

In table 4, the initial (To) soil N and organic matter is given but strangely also the final (Tf) soil N and organic matter, as if the effects of all three soil management strategies could be all mixed together at the end of the experiment. Actually, the comparisons should be between each treatment at the end of the experiment and To. And looking at the data in table 4, it is clear that treatment V does not improve soil N nor (or has only a slight effect on) soil organic matter, in contrast with the other two treatments.

Author Response

PLEASE SEE THE ATTACHMENT

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

Thank you for addressing most of the comments carefully. However, there are still some errors that need to be fixed.

Example:

The newly added sentence in the abstract....consequently the relative costs...". The phrase should be corrected.

In the response (l 14,21)..."in our research we have three cover crops.........", the authors misunderstood the point I made before. I didn't mean not to write "cover crop management", but what I meant was you normally write "cover crops), but it should be "cover crop management" not "cover crops management". I noticed your comments below and some corrections.

Your response sentences (L19, L20, and others below) also have errors: ..for example...."we have rewrite the sentence". Should be "rewritten".....Also, it should be .." we have eliminated".......instead of ..." we have eliminate".....(L51,56,143 your response).......

There are some grammatical mistakes like this in your paper too (though many of them have been corrected this time). Please pay extra attention to the sound scientific writing. We all should work for the quality papers (not the quantity).

I am ok with not separating discussion from results, but I still think it should be improved in terms of writing, being critical, and literature searching/comparing. I don't think there is a lack of literature in the field of cover crops these days, but you only discussed so few papers.

All the best.

 

 

 

Author Response

SEE THE ATTACHMENT

Author Response File: Author Response.docx