Aboveground Biomass, Carbon Sequestration, and Yield of Pyrus pyrifolia under the Management of Organic Residues in the Subtropical Ecosystem of Southern Brazil

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Utilization of organic residues is important for the environment protection and carbon neutrality. This work used a 16-year P. pyrifolia field to study the effects of both compost and mulching to both plants and soil. The experiment set-up is rational and scientific. The sampling is well designed. The results are reliable. The effects on soil organic carbon stocks of organic residues are interesting and its critic for carbon sequestration in agriculture. This work will shed light on the application of organic residues in fruit fields. However, there are still some aspects of the manuscript need to be improved.

1. Soil organic carbon is an important part in this manuscript. The manuscript talks about the carbon a lot. It must be added in the title.
2. Inthe Section 2.1, information of the Control treatment should be detailed. Did Control treatment used chemical fertilizer?
3. The data of the leave macronutrient contents, the plant traits, and the carbon density could be showed using figures like Figure 3. The readers will find the significance easier via boxplot or barplot.
4. In the Table 3 and Table 4, the order of the samples is Control, M, C, and M + C, but in Figure 3, the order is Control, M, M + C, and C. They should be the same.
5. What is the reason of yield difference between treatments? Is it because of the number of the fruits or the weight of each fruit? Are there any differences of the fruit quality?
6. In line 381 and line 388, it’s not necessary to list the authors of the references. Just keeping the numbers would be ok. In line 510, the format of the reference needs to be revised.

Author Response

Reviewer #1: Utilization of organic residues is important for the environment protection and carbon neutrality. This work used a 16-year P. pyrifolia field to study the effects of both compost and mulching to both plants and soil. The experiment set-up is rational and scientific. The sampling is well designed. The results are reliable. The effects on soil organic carbon stocks of organic residues are interesting and its critic for carbon sequestration in agriculture. This work will shed light on the application of organic residues in fruit fields. However, there are still some aspects of the manuscript need to be improved.

1. Soil organic carbon is an important part in this manuscript. The manuscript talks about the carbon a lot. It must be added in the title.

Agreed. See L2.

2. In the Section 2.1, information of the Control treatment should be detailed. Did Control treatment used chemical fertilizer?

We have added this information in the section 2.1. See L137.

3. The data of the leave macronutrient contents, the plant traits, and the carbon density could be showed using figures like Figure 3. The readers will find the significance easier via boxplot or barplot.

Agreed. We have used barplots. See L287-293; and L309-315.

1. In the Table 3 and Table 4, the order of the samples is Control, M, C, and M + C, but in Figure 3, the order is Control, M, M + C, and C. They should be the same.

We have adjusted it accordingly. See Figure 5.

1. What is the reason of yield difference between treatments? Is it because of the number of the fruits or the weight of each fruit? Are there any differences of the fruit quality?

The difference was due to the number of fruits per plant. We did not find any significative differences on fruit quality in our study.

1. In line 381 and line 388, it’s not necessary to list the authors of the references. Just keeping the numbers would be ok. In line 510, the format of the reference needs to be revised.

We have adjusted it accordingly. See L400; L530-532.

Reviewer 2 Report

1. Abstract:

Need to rewrite

            What is the problem statement ?

            Need to state detailed treatments of ORM clearly.

                        Treatments were applied for 16 years?  The statement was not clear, after reading the materials and methods in Text, I found out the treatments were applied to the 16 year-old orchard.

                        Compost

                        Mulching

                        Compost and Mulching

Spell out “C sequestration” and “C density” appeared for the first time.

2. Text

2.1  Line 51-52  “-icide” type products (e.g., herbicide, fungi-cide, and iPrensecticide)

            ‘cide’ means to kill   REWORD THIS SENTENCE. There are organic pesticides too.

2.2. Line 108, 140, 166, 276, and more?  Pyrus pyrifolia  Italicize

2.3. Line 182 Diabratica speciosa Italicize

2.4. Line 190 2.5. Predictive model?? (spelling??)

2.5. Line 195 Need to explain more about “Stepwise” function

“Based in our traits’ dataset, we have estimated four significative predictive models: i) Leaves bio-mass (kg plant-1) = 1.13 + (0.24 * number of branches) + (1.21 * plant height), R2 = 0.93, p < 0.001; ii) Stem biomass (kg plant-1) = -3.97 + (3.29 * stem diameter), R2 = 0.99, p < 0.001; iii) Branches biomass (kg plant-1) = -56.29 + (8.64 * plant height) + (3.46 * stem diameter), R2 = 0.95, p < 0.001; and iv) Root biomass (kg plant-1) = -55.86 + (14.35 * plant height) + (1.38 * stem diameter), R2 = 0.99, p < 0.001.”

Where are those constant numbers appeared from? References?  How did the authors obtain the equations?  Need more explanation.  

2.6. Table 3, 4, 5: Change the table format to have Treatments on left column and characters measured on top row of the table

Author Response

Reviewer #2: 1. Abstract:

Need to rewrite

What is the problem statement?

Organic residues management (ORM) alter plant traits and soil properties by changing nutrient and carbon cycling. It is unclear how ORM (mulching, compost, and their combination) applied for 18 months creates a mechanism to promote changes in a P. pyrifolia field. See L25-27.

Need to state detailed treatments of ORM clearly.

Agreed. See L29-31.

Treatments were applied for 16 years?  The statement was not clear, after reading the materials and methods in Text, I found out the treatments were applied to the 16 year-old orchard. Compost, Mulching, and Compost and Mulching

All treatments were applied for 18 months in a 16-year-old orchard. See L27.

Spell out “C sequestration” and “C density” appeared for the first time.

We have adjusted it accordingly.

2. Text

2.1  Line 51-52  “-icide” type products (e.g., herbicide, fungi-cide, and iPrensecticide). ‘cide’ means to kill   REWORD THIS SENTENCE. There are organic pesticides too.

We have used “chemical products” instead “-icide” type products.

2.2. Line 108, 140, 166, 276, and more?  Pyrus pyrifolia  Italicize

We have adjusted it accordingly. See L110, 145, 173, and 322. 

2.3. Line 182 Diabratica speciosa Italicize

We have adjusted it accordingly. See L195.

2.4. Line 190 2.5. Predictive model?? (spelling??)

Thanks. We have adjusted it accordingly. See L204.

2.5. Line 195 Need to explain more about “Stepwise” function: “Based in our traits’ dataset, we have estimated four significative predictive models: i) Leaves bio-mass (kg plant^-1) = 1.13 + (0.24 * number of branches) + (1.21 * plant height), R2 = 0.93, p < 0.001; ii) Stem biomass (kg plant^-1) = -3.97 + (3.29 * stem diameter), R2 = 0.99, p < 0.001; iii) Branches biomass (kg plant-1) = -56.29 + (8.64 * plant height) + (3.46 * stem diameter), R2 = 0.95, p < 0.001; and iv) Root biomass (kg plant-1) = -55.86 + (14.35 * plant height) + (1.38 * stem diameter), R2 = 0.99, p < 0.001.” Where are those constant numbers appeared from? References?  How did the authors obtain the equations?  Need more explanation.

We have explained it in our predictive model section. We have four extra areas (See Figure 2). These extra areas were used to build our predictive models. Our analyzes included plant height, number of branches, and stem diameter at 30 cm from soil surface before starting the field experiment in the 16-year-old P. pyrifolia plantation. Leaves, stems, branches, and roots of each plant were harvested to determine leaves, stems, branches, and root dry biomass. Using this dataset, we have run “stepwise” function to obtain our predictive model. We did not use any reference to obtain the equation, we built it.

2.6. Table 3, 4, 5: Change the table format to have Treatments on left column and characters measured on top row of the table

We have adjusted it accordingly. We have used figures to show our results from Table 3 and 4 following the reviewer #1 suggestions. Table 5 was adjusted accordingly reviewer #2 suggestions.