Using Visible and Thermal Images by an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle to Monitor the Plant Water Status, Canopy Growth and Yield of Olive Trees (cvs. Frantoio and Leccino) under Different Irrigation Regimes

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

This paper presents a reasonable method to solve a real application problem. It is well-organized, clearly written, and shows some interesting results that are encouraged to be accepted with minor revision. However, the commented questions need only to be answered.

 

Monitoring of plant water status is considered very interesting, and it is a very hot research topic in image processing and plant monitoring. In this work, authors utilized both the UAV and RGB images information, The RGB images by UAV allowed to estimate tree canopy volume and were able to detect differences in canopy growth across irrigation regimes. Experiment study proves that the positive effects of deficit irrigation strategies to save relevant volumes of water.

1. Please explicitly indicate and clarify the challenges this study aims to address. What are the challenges, and why? Why cannot the previous studies well address these challenges.

 2. At the end of section 1, add a table summarizing the advantages and disadvantages of existing methods facing the same problem. This way, the reader would rapidly appreciate the novelty of the paper.

  3. The introduction and related work are mixed into a long section. It would be more clear for readers to separate them.

 4. More state-of-the-art studies should be cited and discussed in the related work section. Moreover, some light spots must be given to image processing and UAV by adding and citing some references in the image processing section e.g. 1) Faster CNN-based vehicle detection and counting strategy for fixed camera scenes, Multimedia Tools and applications, 2022. 2) Efficient vehicle detection and tracking strategy in aerial videos by employing morphological operations and feature points motion analysis, Multimedia Tools and Applications, 2020.

 5. Please enrich the captions of all figures and tables for clarification.

  6.    In comparison to SOTA methods, more experimental results of other state-of-the-art methods should be given. 

  7.    I also find some grammar problems in this paper. Author needs to carefully check these low mistakes, which is very important for readers.

   8. Conclusion part must be added in the last part of the paper

 

Author Response

Dear Reviewer 1,

thank you for your comments and suggestions which have been very appreciated. Thus, the manuscript has been revised according to your observations. The improvements are shown in the tracked manuscript.

Below, the point by point replies.

 

Reviewer 1: This paper presents a reasonable method to solve a real application problem. It is well-organized, clearly written, and shows some interesting results that are encouraged to be accepted with minor revision. However, the commented questions need only to be answered. Monitoring of plant water status is considered very interesting, and it is a very hot research topic in image processing and plant monitoring. In this work, authors utilized both the UAV and RGB images information, The RGB images by UAV allowed to estimate tree canopy volume and were able to detect differences in canopy growth across irrigation regimes. Experiment study proves that the positive effects of deficit irrigation strategies to save relevant volumes of water.

Authors: Thank you for your comment, we are pleased you liked the manuscript.

 

Reviewer 1: Please explicitly indicate and clarify the challenges this study aims to address. What are the challenges, and why? Why cannot the previous studies well address these challenges.

Authors: Thank you for your comment. We improved the introduction paragraph indicating a specific challenge of this work with respect to previous studies. We also explicated the novelties of this study in the discussion section (lines 354-356 and lines 367-369).

 

Reviewer 1: At the end of section 1, add a table summarizing the advantages and disadvantages of existing methods facing the same problem. This way, the reader would rapidly appreciate the novelty of the paper.

Authors: Thank you for your comment. In the introduction section we reported what are the standard methods used for tree water status and canopy growth monitoring indicating their main limits (lines 47-60). Then, we suggested alternative methods based on UAV imagery facing the same problems (lines 60-82).

 

Reviewer 1: The introduction and related work are mixed into a long section. It would be more clear for readers to separate them.

Authors: Thank you for your comment. The introduction paragraph includes two main parts: 1) implications of irrigation management on vegetative growth, fruit yield and oil yield (lines 27-61); 2) tree water status and canopy growth assessment by UAV-VIS-TIR images (lines 62-82).

 

Reviewer 1: More state-of-the-art studies should be cited and discussed in the related work section. Moreover, some light spots must be given to image processing and UAV by adding and citing some references in the image processing section e.g. 1) Faster CNN-based vehicle detection and counting strategy for fixed camera scenes, Multimedia Tools and applications, 2022. 2) Efficient vehicle detection and tracking strategy in aerial videos by employing morphological operations and feature points motion analysis, Multimedia Tools and Applications, 2020.

Authors: Thank you for your suggestion. The recommended articles, although interesting from the methodological standpoint do not add relevant information for the appreciation of the content of our work and are not needed for the objective of our manuscript.

 

Reviewer 1: Please enrich the captions of all figures and tables for clarification.

Authors: Thank you for your comment. We improved the captions of figures and table to make them clearer.

 

Reviewer 1: In comparison to SOTA methods, more experimental results of other state-of-the-art methods should be given.

Authors: Thank you for your comment. Given the hybrid nature of this study, that includes agronomic and technological aspects, the manuscript already reports a long list of references (52 papers, 36 of them related to different methods for water status and vegetative growth assessment).

 

Reviewer 1: I also find some grammar problems in this paper. Author needs to carefully check these low mistakes, which is very important for readers.

Authors: Thank you for your comment. We’ve carefully checked the entire manuscript and corrected the mistakes.

 

Reviewer 1: Conclusion part must be added in the last part of the paper

Authors: Thank you for your comment. We have included the Conclusion section in the last part of the paper.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

The topic of the manuscript entitled “Using visible and thermal images by an unmanned aerial vehicle to monitor plant water status, canopy growth and yield of olive trees (cvs. Frantoio and Leccino) under different irrigation regimes” is interesting and falls into scope of the journal.

Lines 168 - 170: Since you are using TIR, I suggest you add a description of the observation time and sunlight conditions (clear or cloudy).

Lines 196 - 198: CWSI is the key index in this study. I recommend adding an equation of CWSI.

Lines 202 - 205: For the reader's understanding, it is recommended to add equation of DICWSI as well as descriptions.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer 2,

thank you for your comments and suggestions which have been very appreciated. The improvements are shown in the tracked manuscript.

Below, the point by point replies.

 

Reviewer 2: The topic of the manuscript entitled “Using visible and thermal images by an unmanned aerial vehicle to monitor plant water status, canopy growth and yield of olive trees (cvs. Frantoio and Leccino) under different irrigation regimes” is interesting and falls into scope of the journal.

Authors: Thanks for your comment.

 

Reviewer 2: Lines 168 - 170: Since you are using TIR, I suggest you add a description of the observation time and sunlight conditions (clear or cloudy).

Authors: Thank you for your suggestion, we‘ve included these information in the text.

 

Reviewer 2: Lines 196 - 198: CWSI is the key index in this study. I recommend adding an equation of CWSI.

Authors: Thank you for your suggestion, we‘ve included the CWSI formula in M6M section.

 

Reviewer 2: Lines 202 - 205: For the reader's understanding, it is recommended to add equation of DICWSI as well as descriptions.

Authors: Thank you for your suggestion, in M&M we report how the DICWSI has been calculated (lines 204-207).

 

Author Response File: Author Response.docx