Mineral Composition of Soil and the Wheat Grain in Intensive and Conservation Cropping Systems

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

This is the revision of the manuscript number agronomy-1714526 Title: “Mineral composition of soil and the wheat grain in intensive 2 and conservation cropping systems”, proposed by Ms. Susy and colleagues for consideration for publication in Agronomy

 

The manuscript raises an increasingly problematic issue, the need to address more efficient soil management and the importance of the bioaccumulation of elements present in the soil, the study was carried out in an area with great cereal importance, even so I have many doubts about the study, such as information on whether it was carried out under irrigation conditions

 

Material and methods:

Line 89-90 From bibliographic reference number [30], the format of how to indicate the references in the article text is lost. The next refernece is Magwaza (2019)

Line 160-161 You inform that the repetitions of the study plots are 6 m², very small areas to carry out work with tractors, what type of machinery was used and what was the total area of the studyI suggest that it could be more intuitive for the reader if the statistical data were starting the lowest values with the letter a.

Line 175-176 Wheat sowing is one of the important moments that affects wheat yield, What machine was used to plant the small areas described in the manuscript? Was it the same for ICS as for CCS?

Line 163-166 and 169-172 You detail that you make a cover application in spring with 120 kg ha in ICS and 60 kg ha^-1 in CCS, based on what experience do you apply half the dose in Nitrogen CCS?

Line 199 it would be convenient to place the subscripts in the formulas of chemical compounds when required, for example HNO₃.

Results and discussion:

Line 250-251 (Table 1) In the introduction you talk about security, the importance of wheat in the population and food security, in the case of the As element, I would like to know if you have carried out its speciation, to know the amount of organic and inorganic As found in the soil, this could influence the bioaccumulation of As in wheat.

Line 258-259 (Table 2) The statistical differences between the different varieties of wheat and between the different managements, would add greater value to the study, I recommend carrying out ANOVA between treatments.

Line 258-259 (Table 2) the display of the values is confusing, it is not clearly seen when you separate the units with. or when you separate them by, in table 2 for example, in table 2 the value of Mg for the Zvezdana variety in CCS (1,075±18), I would like it to be unified

Line 410-412 CCS management contains remains of corn crops from the previous campaign, this biomass can cause temperature damping in the soil, you report a drop in temperature in the CCS treatment and consequently a drop in yields, how could you explain this drop in temperature?

 

General comments:

The author refers to the interference of the elements present in the soil in the bioaccumulation of the wheat crop with different management, he observed weakness in the discussion of the results based on the pH present in the soil, an essential condition in the mobility of the chemical elements of the soil. soil, as well as a somewhat general defense of the results, without specifying in many cases the results between varieties and between treatments.

Author Response

Respected,

Please see the attachment.

Kind regards

Author Response File: Author Response.doc

Reviewer 2 Report

The manuscript is well developed written and discussed

Author Response

Respected,

Please see the attachment.

Kind regards

Author Response File: Author Response.doc

Reviewer 3 Report

General comments

The manuscript is clear and presented in a well-structured manner.

The cited references are recent enough and well related with investigated subject.

The work is solid and can be considered more on the side of applied science than of basic science.

Nevertheless, in my opinion, the objetive of the research is not very original.

In the conservation cropping system (CCS), with reduced tillage, half of N top dressing applied and half of weed control added, comparing with the so called intesive cropping system (ICS), results of less grain yield and higher organic matter in soil could be expected.

The experimental design is fairly correct and results are consintent.

Statistical analysis is correct.

However, I find some weakness on the soil system. I miss information of soil analysis, as carbonates content, conductivity or the cation exchange capacity.

I miss more information of the available element in soil, above all the essential elements. They are better indexes of soil fertility and could serve to follow soil sustainability.

I would suggest to present and comment separately the element content in two groups: essential and no essentiel elements, both in soil and in grains.

 Specific comments

Line 129. I find Figure 1 is not necessary.

Line 134. What degree of heterogeneity has the soil of the experimental field?.

Line 190. Paper of Korunovic and Stojanovic (1989) is written in serbian.

Lines 204 – 206. What was the criteria to choose the elements to be analysed?. I would recommend to split essential and no essential and toxic elements, no just in tables but in the discussion.  B and Mo are not included: why?.

Line 215. Results in Table 1 are values of two years average: it can hide the evolution of different important soil parameters. I think that authors can comment wether the values of each year are similar.

Line 221. Total element content in soils is an insufficient data to be related with the elemental content in grains. The extreme case of Cr, presenting 13850 mg kg^-1 in soil and was not detected in plant.

Line 250. Table 1. Some significant numbers in results of Tables 1 and 2 are larger than convinent. They need a review.

N available value appears in table 1 but is not mentioned at point 2.3.3. “Chemical analysis”: what method is used to measure N available in soil?.

Line 252. Instead of “… soil elemental composition, it should be “…. grain elemental composition”.

Line 258 Table 2. N content in grains is missing.

Do the authors have any explanation for some anomalus results in grains as for Co or V?.

Line 286. The same question of a posible explanation for some anomalus BAF results in Table 4.

Line 313. As I said before, I would separe comments of the analysis of principal components (section 3.4.) in two groups of elements: essential and no essential elements. The same for grain yield of Section 3.5.

Line 327. Figure 3, Letters are difficult to identify.

Line 350. Little increase on the organic matter of soil.

The same for N available (line 370)

Line 430.  …… trace elements in ……

Line 449. Error “….aGiven …..”?

Line 641. There is a mistake on axis of the lower grafic for S, Zn and P.

 

 

 

Author Response

Respected,

Please see the attachment.

Kind regards

Author Response File: Author Response.doc

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

I accept the changes made by the authors

Author Response

Respected,

Please see the attachment.

Kind regards

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 3 Report

I appreciate the authors response and accept their comments.

Just a couple of remarks on results presentation.

Line 215. 3 significant figures would better in all analytical results, and no 4 as in Ca, K, Mg, Co, Cu, Ni, Sr and Zn.

The values of S.D. are very high in Ca, K, Mg and Fe.

Line 258. the same 3 significant figures for all results.

The S.D. are very higj in K, Mg, P and S.

Line 641. In figure A.1. of the Appendix, legends in axes for S, Zn and P are incorrect.

 

 

Author Response

Respected,

Please see the attachment.

Kind regards

Author Response File: Author Response.doc