Screening Soybean for Adaptation to Relay Intercropping Systems: Associations between Reproductive Organ Abscission and Yield
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
1. This study has certain research value for screening soybean varieties for intercropping with maize, but some issues need to be solved before it is recommended for publication.
2. The manuscript studies abscission of flower and pod, why are some physiological indicators related to abscission not measured?
3. Why not set up a monoculture of soybean as a control?
4. Soybean and maize intercropping, and the shoot of maize will cause soybean shading. Are there indicators such as measuring soybean photosynthetic rate? This may be related to flower and pod abscission.
5. Figure 6 is not clear, please revise.
Author Response
Dear Reviewer:
We greatly appreciate your willingness to consider a revised manuscript. Here, we submit our reversed manuscript (Ms. Ref. No.: Agronomy-1915034) titled " Screening soybean for adaptation to relay intercropping system: Associations between reproductive organs abscission and yield" for consideration by Agronomy-Basel. The new/modified text is with track changes according to the Editor’s comments, and the point-by-point responses are provided below.
Hoping that our revisions have now made the manuscript suitable for publication, and looking forward to your response. If there are any remaining questions, we are glad to quickly address or answer you.
Best Regards
Taiwen Yong
Sichuan Agriculture University
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
Comments and Suggestions for Authors:
Article ID: agronomy-1915034
Screening soybean for adaptation to relay intercropping system: Associations between reproductive organs abscission and yield
General comment:
The study is devoted to the problem of finding soybean cultivars suitable for intercropping systems with maize. Soybean varieties suitable for intercropping systems might vary considerably depending on their ability to tolerate the interference of the other crop. A two-year field experiment was carried out to evaluate the flower and pod abscission, dry matter production, and yield of fifteen cultivars. Method of ANOVA was used. Also, cluster analysis and principal component analysis were performed.
The task is solved – among the tested 15 cultivars of soybean, ND12, and GX3 cultivars showed the best performance.
However, several related arguments and conclusions raise questions.
The English in the present manuscript requires improvement.
The Abstract is structured and contains information on background, aims, material, methods, results, and conclusions.
General comment to the Introduction section:
The content of the literature review chapter is related to the research topic. Up-to-date literature references are presented in the manuscript by the author(s), but critical analysis has not been carried out with a high degree of accuracy. The English in the present manuscript requires improvement.
In the chapter Materials and Methods the methodology is adequate but there is a lack of information in some aspects. Please provide soil texture, chemical parameters, and references on the methods used to provide the soil properties.
In the chapter Results,
The results are displayed correctly. The tables and figures are clear and precise.
In the chapter Discussion,
The discussion is informative.
Moreover, the authors attempt to discuss their important results and the rest is a quotation from literature. Please try to discuss your results in depth and link them with the appropriate literature throughout the whole section.
Here try to “play” a little bit with the expressions you use. Do not repeat always the same expressions. This lowers the quality of your writing.
Interaction of factors in ANOVA, factor interaction means that not all objects respond equally to the combinations of factors. For many traits, there is obvious interaction of factors. It would be interesting to draw a conclusion from this. Significant interactions are usually the best background for discussion.
4.1. The authors discuss and relate their own results to nutrients that they do not provide any information about. There are too many assumptions. Consider linking the results to climatic conditions (precipitation, temperature, relative humidity).
Author Response
Dear Reviewer:
We greatly appreciate your willingness to consider a revised manuscript. Here, we submit our reversed manuscript (Ms. Ref. No.: Agronomy-1915034) titled " Screening soybean for adaptation to relay intercropping system: Associations between reproductive organs abscission and yield" for consideration by Agronomy-Basel. The new/modified text is with track changes according to the Editor’s comments, and the point-by-point responses are provided below.
Hoping that our revisions have now made the manuscript suitable for publication, and looking forward to your response. If there are any remaining questions, we are glad to quickly address or answer you.
Best Regards
Taiwen Yong
Sichuan Agriculture University
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
This version of the manuscript is acceptable.
