Key Agronomic Fertilization Practices That Influence Yield of Naranjilla (Solanum quitoense Lam.) in the Ecuadorian Amazon
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
The research presents the results of different fertilization regimes on a one year research carried out on Solanum quitoense.
General comments:
It is not clear why a multivariate statistical analysis was performed according to the objectives of the research. In other words it is not clear why PCA was performed, which is the meaning of the presented figures and which are the relevant information provided with PCA. There are two options both requesting mayor revisions: 1) remove the PCA and perform ANOVA (Fertilisation regime x Environment), 2) explain the reason why the PCA was performed and eventually modify the objective of the research. In general I would suggest to ask advise to a statistician.
English must be improved in the whole manuscript (e.g.: line 52: the area part of the plant, e.g. line 228: “Phonological”, line 304: “consequentlt”, etc.)
Specific comments
Line 39-41: not clear. “25 to 30 t ha-1 year” or “profitability of 119 to 164%” to what do you refer,
Line 50: please add a reference for “to avoid a 50% reduction in yield”;
Line 58-61: seems a synthetic description of treatments. The objective of the research is not clear; please rephrase.
Line 66: please change unit of Longitude and latitude
Lines 72-73: “eighteen experimental units” according to the number of treatment and replica the experimental units are supposed to be more.
Line 78: what does “mass cal” means? In which treatment the lime was applied.
Lines 80-81: Maistar calcium and Magnesil: please specify
Table 4 and 5: I would suggest to introduce first the fertilizer practice then the environment
Conclusion should be written again to be more clear.
Author Response
Please see the attachment
Author Response File: 
Author Response.docx
Reviewer 2 Report
Dear authors,
even if the research topic is very interesting I should give you some suggestion for your paper to improve its quality.
in the line 72-79 you described a randomised block design 6x3 but the treatments were 9 so it seems to be 9x2.
No description about the width of the plots was done neither the number of plants used for the trials.
No descriptions about the agronomic practises made during the trials.
in the line 271-279 you seem to contradict your research results correlating the yield to the soil fertility. In this case you couldn't say that you see differences in the different treatment. If the natural amount of the nutrient was already high it hides the effects of the treatments.
Your conclusion couldn't be agronomically significant after only one year of trials. In agronomy at least tree years were considered relevant to reach a conclusion expecially when the trials were done on the open fields and so strongly influenced by the weather conditions.
All the statistical analisys done with only one year of data weren't scientifically valuable even if well done.
The conclusion must be only preliminary and should suggest questions that can be answered in the following years of experimentation.
So I suggest you to change title, discussion and conclusion given the idea that the results were only preliminary and needs more studies.
I also evidencied some typing mistakes in the text.
Comments for author File: 
Comments.pdf
Author Response
Please see attachment.
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Reviewer 3 Report
The paper would be significantly improved with the addition of more details about:
- lack of hypothesis;
The article lacks SMART objectives or research questions (RQs) to be answered at the end of
the paper. This has to be clearly shown in the introduction section of the article. Authors need to state RQs and thoroughly revise the introduction
section in line with the research objectives.
Materials and methods
There is a lack an information on the agrochemical characteristic of the soils; organic matter, pH, etc.
Conclusions
The conclusion should be presented in line with RQs.
Author Response
Please see the attachment
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
Minor comments
Lines 38-39: what do you mean for “receives technical management”?
Line 185: How many replica where adopted?
Table 5 and table 6: Rearrange the order of fertilizer practice, starting from the full, continuing according to the importance of the element (i.e.: N, P, K, ….)
Major comments
Lines 167-161: in general still not clear. E.g.: “which variables are related with the yield of naranjilla”, if this is one of the objectives why a whole correlation matrix (see table 2) is presented?
Lines 347-352: As written before, it is not clearly specified, according to the objectives of the research, why PCA was performed and which are the useful information provided by figures.
Author Response
Please see the attachment
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Reviewer 2 Report
Dear Authors,
You answered adequately to my tips but however there are still minor English mistakes (see red highlights) and in the lines 496-498 your statistical evaluations are not confirmed in the table 5 (please review).
Comments for author File: Comments.pdf
Author Response
Please see the attachment
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Reviewer 3 Report
The paper would be significantly improved with the addition of more details about:hypothesis;
The article lacks research questions (RQs) to be answered at the end of
the paper. This has to be clearly shown in the introduction section of the article. Authors need to state RQs and thoroughly revise the introduction
section in line with the research objectives.
Material and methods
There is a lack an information on the agrochemical characteristic of the soil; organic matter, pH,
Conclusions
The conclusion should be presented in line with RQs.
Author Response
Please see the attachment
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
