Maize Grain Composition with Additions of NPK Briquette and Organically Enhanced N Fertilizer

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Authors have considerably improved this manuscript in the revised version. I feel it is now good for publication in Agronomy.

Author Response

Comment: Authors have considerably improved this manuscript in the revised version. I feel it is now good for publication in Agronomy.

Thank you so much for reviewing this manuscript and your recommendation of acceptance for publication!

Reviewer 2 Report

The paper has been improved. However, I have some suggestions concerning the text. In my opinion the phrase "fertilizer sources" is not clear. Please consider changing it into "fertilizers".

Moreover, please consider some improvements of English language:

line 31: "as effective" instead of "an effective";

line 32: "similarly to" instead of "similar to";

line 126: "used in this study" instead of "used this study";

lines 530-531: "to  the fact that more enzymes responsible for fiber synthesis were..." instead of " to more enzymes that are responsible for fiber synthesis were...";

line 540: "the same or more" instead of "same or more".

Two last sentences of the abstract are unclear. In the present form (" In conclusion, the nutrient-balanced NPKBriq is an effective fertilizer as the commonly used commercial N fertilizers for maize grain quality. OENF, similar to commonly used commercial fertilizers, exerts no negative effect on maize grain composition.") it is written that commercial fertilizers are effective and exerts no negative effect in maize cultivation.

In addition, I would like to draw attention to the structure of tables and figures - it would be advisable to prepare them in a way that they present the data coherently, clearly and briefly.

Author Response

Comment: The paper has been improved. However, I have some suggestions concerning the text. In my opinion the phrase "fertilizer sources" is not clear. Please consider changing it into "fertilizers".

Thank you so much for your review and proposing more revisions!

We have changed all the phrase "fertilizer sources" to "fertilizers".

Comment: Moreover, please consider some improvements of English language:

line 31: "as effective" instead of "an effective";

line 32: "similarly to" instead of "similar to";

line 126: "used in this study" instead of "used this study";

lines 530-531: "to the fact that more enzymes responsible for fiber synthesis were..." instead of " to more enzymes that are responsible for fiber synthesis were...";

line 540: "the same or more" instead of "same or more".

"an effective"was deleted because of the conclusion was revised.

"similar to" was deleted because of the conclusion was revised.

"used this study" has changed to "used in this study" in line 110.

"to more enzymes that are responsible for fiber synthesis were..." has changed to "to the fact that more enzymes responsible for fiber synthesis were..." in line 338-339.

"same or more" has changed to "the same or more" in line 347-348.

Comment: Two last sentences of the abstract are unclear. In the present form (" In conclusion, the nutrient-balanced NPKBriq is an effective fertilizer as the commonly used commercial N fertilizers for maize grain quality. OENF, similar to commonly used commercial fertilizers, exerts no negative effect on maize grain composition.") it is written that commercial fertilizers are effective and exerts no negative effect in maize cultivation.

These two sentences have been revised to get rid of the impression that it is written that commercial fertilizers are effective and exerts no negative effect in maize cultivation.

Comment: In addition, I would like to draw attention to the structure of tables and figures - it would be advisable to prepare them in a way that they present the data coherently, clearly and briefly.

Very good suggestion, thanks! The structure of Tables 2 and 4 has been changed to present the data coherently, clearly and briefly. In this way, a lot of space is also saved. There are four simple and small figures in the manuscript. Figures 1, 2, and 3 are presented in the same format with the four fertilizer sources as the legends. Figure 4 only has the weather data. We have tried to figure out how to change the structure of the figures, but we could not find a better way to present them, and we believe the current structure of the figures is fine. If the structure of the figures has to be changed, please send us more specific instructions about how to change it.    

This manuscript is a resubmission of an earlier submission. The following is a list of the peer review reports and author responses from that submission.

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The authors have experimented the effect of NPK fertilizer briquette and organically enhanced N fertilizer on the grain composition of maize (Zea mays L.). The effect was observed on the protein, oil, fiber, ash, and starch of maize grains. The manuscript has little scientific value but is poorly written and the results are not presented well. In its present form it is very difficult to follow the results. Some of the other comments are below. Abstract: Abstract should be more informative. Line 21, how these fertilizers are innovative? There are loose sentence like “OENF sometimes ..”; sometimes is not a good choice for presenting the abstract of results. “In conclusion, the nutrient-balanced NPKBriq is a more effective fertilizer than the commonly used commercial N fertilizers for maize production” here we are assessing the maize quality not the yield, so we can’t write the maize production. Introduction: In general, the introduction section requires editing, reducing many of the loose sentences such as in line 61-62 (…protect the environment…). Some of the words are clubbed probably due to different versions of the MS Word. Several lines throughout manuscript are bold, please change the bold fonts to normal. First and third sentence of paragraph 1 can be clubbed to present a clear statistic of the maize production. I think we don’t need a whole (second) paragraph presenting the influence of nitrogen fertilizer on maize yield, as yield is not the major objective in this manuscript. Next paragraphs do not clear how these innovative fertilizers will improve the maize quality. I suggest condensing the information and make it clearer. Material and Methods: The headings for paragraph could be “Experimental site and soil”. Text from line “Maize cultivar Dekalb 6483 was planted…… 2012 and 29 May in 2013” could be adjusted in next paragraph. We wish to know which treatment performs best in terms of both yield and quality (not only quality). Results and discussion: I believe this section need rigorous editing; authors should crisp the information and increase the readability. Almost all the sentences are very long and very difficult to follow. For instance, the sentence “although significant….” run up to 5 lines (even though the information is not of utmost importance). I think the results of fertilizer types and rate can be clubbed and condensed to a single paragraph for each of the parameters observed. Authors should present only the significant results; all other results can go in supplementary data (if at all authors wished to present). I suggest keeping a maximum of five figures (one figure each for protein, oil, fiber, ash, and starch yields) and a table showing significance of the effects of fertilizer source and their interactions. Most of the data presented in the tables are not informative. I don’t see any significance of correlation of observed parameters (table 8). Conclusion can be crisped too. We need to finally know which treatment (type and rate) is best for both the yield and quality of the maize.

Reviewer 2 Report

The paper concerns using NPK fertilizer briquette and organically enhanced N fertilizer in maize cultivation. Searching for new fertilizers (and checking the effects of their application) is important from an economical and ecological point of view. Results presented in the paper were obtained in a field experiment conducted for two years in two locations, which increases the value of the paper. However, in the present form, the paper needs some improvements and corrections:

in the whole manuscript, there is a lack of spaces between some words, e.g. "OENFsometimes" (line 28), "attributescompared" (line 30), "fertilizersfor" (line 31) - please add the missing spaces in the whole manuscript;

lines 121-122: please add information about the form of potassium that was applied across all the fertilized treatments;

lines 122-124: there is information about alignment of P dose in treatments with OENF - NPKBriq also contains some P (and K), so please add information if the P and K doses in treatments with NPKBriq were also aligned to the uniform P and K rates;

line 134: please add information about the temperature of determination of dry matter content in the grain;

lines 215-224 and 374-376: the explanations of sulfur impact on yield quality (S was added with OENF) are mutually exclusive and need correction and deeper discussion, e.g. "OENF frequently resulted in numerically lower protein concentration than NPKBriq" (lines 217-218), "higher protein concentration with OENF than NPKBriq was probably resultant from the higher S application with OENF" (lines 221-222), "lower protein concentration with OENF, which was caused by the higher S application with OENF" (lines375-376);

line 233: I suggest adding information about average monthly air temperature during maize vegetation period (as a supplement to information about monthly precipitation);

line 296: value "125,0a" (Grand Junction, 2013, 85 kg N/ha) should be right aligned.