Taro (Colocasia esculenta (L.) Schott) Yields and Soil Chemical Properties Were Improved by Row-Surface Straw Mulching

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

This manuscript presents valuable information regarding Taro yields following straw mulching. The manuscript is well written and I recommend publication following revisions.

Detailed Comments

Lines 46 and 48. The terms ‘facilities’ and ‘facility agriculture’ are used. From the discussion of protected vegetable production and the use of a plastic tunnel for the experiments, I understand in general what you are describing. However, I think it will help the reader to include a description of ‘facility agriculture’ so it is clear what you are discussing and the kinds of structures that growers may be using.

Line 79: Change ‘introducing to the soil due to straw returning’ to ‘introduced to the soil due to returning straw’.

Line 88: Delete ‘of’ after ‘various’.

Line 92: Change ‘explore’ to ‘explores’.

Line 173: Change ‘of the wheat straw’ to ‘as the wheat straw’.

Line 401: Change ‘organic matters’ to ‘organic material’.

Line 427: Change ‘promoter’ to ‘promote’.

Line 432: Change ‘nutrient’ to ‘nutrients’.

Line 437: Change ‘contents’ to ‘content’.

Line 455: Change ‘Thus, This might be another factors’ to ‘Thus, this might be another factor’.

Conclusions: I suggest adding a brief Conclusions section to sum up your major findings.

 

Author Response

Please see the attachment below.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

The agronomy-1615348 with the title of Taro (Colocasia esculenta) yields and soil chemical properties were improved by row-surface straw mulching aimed to investigate effects of the straw of two main crops [wheat (Triticum aestivum) and rice (Oryza sativa)] as row-surface straw mulching on the taro yields and soil chemical properties. The ms has to be improved before it goes for next step.

Authors should add L. after the latin name of any plant species, see this in Title of the ms and L32, L33, L63 etc. Check this also in whole ms and correct.

L10 remove it, because it is repeated in L11

How you explain the improvement of available nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium in soil after you applied the straw?

L40-41 what do you mean by hm2? Do you mean ha? Or m2? Or ….? Use SI units please

Keywords should be improved; the current form are weak.

I do not like the authors to focus on China in the introduction section. They should write this story as global issue instead of localizing it. The authors wrote a lot about China more than the main issue, therefore they should rearrange the introduction and make it stronger and deep.

In the introduction, the authors should write that straw of rice or wheat can be used as biochar. This can be added somewhere between L69-81. Please cite this relevant ref for biochar produced from rice straw: https://doi.org/10.3390/agronomy9100637

Please revise the aims at the end of the introduction section and expand it as well as add the hypothesis of the study.

Table 1 can be written as text and remove the table, it does not have much data!

In Table 2: in column 4, what do you mean by Total phosphorus potassium? Something is wrong! Do you mean total potassium?

I was looking to see other elements in the analysis of rice and wheat straw such as Ca, Si, etc., why you did not analyse them?

L125-140: can you another word instead of length?

L135: the design of the experiment was randomized block! Why you did not use split plot design in randomized block, where the short or length in the main plots and the type of the straw in the subplots.

L141 On May 5? Which year???? Please add the year in this sentence and other next sentences where the date is presented without year.

L210: The company of SPSS program was sold to another company, so please change the name from SPSS Inc., Chicago to the correct name and information.

All table and Figures in the results section should be rearranged to be presented in a good why. Now, they are not high quality, and not well presented. Also, you do not have to add two decimal if the number is big enough to see the differences. Also, the letter of the significant should be superscripts in Tables. The figures are very weak presented.

I was expecting to see the combination treatments according to the explanation of the authors in the material and methods sections. I understand that the authors have four treatments, it was good to see them in Tables.

The discussion section is good, but the authors have to make it deep and interpret their results with other investigations and show the mechanisms of their treatments and their positive effects on yield of taro and on soil traits.

I recommend authors to write a solid section for the conclusion after the discussion section.

Good luck, reviewer.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Author Response

Please see the attachment

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

The ms was improved, the authors should go through their ms and correct the typos errors.