Effects of Shredded Paper Mulch on Komatsuna Spinach under Three Soil Moisture Levels

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report (Previous Reviewer 1)

It is ok by me

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report (Previous Reviewer 2)

1.The introduction in the article does not highlight the necessity of this study and does not raise scientific questions. It is recommended to streamline and improve the introduction.

2.There are currently five images of meteorological data in the article. It is recommended to integrate the meteorological data and place it in one or two images, which is more suitable.

3.Please supplement the longitude and latitude of the study area.

4.Please supplement the physical and chemical data of the soil, soil nutrient content, bulk density, etc. in the experimental design section.

5.What is the root distribution depth of the experimental material Komatsu spinach? Does the size of the pot in the experiment match the root distribution of the crop? Suggest supplementing the distribution of crop roots and the rationality of pot size.

6.There are formatting issues in lines 400 and 408 of the article. It is recommended to check for similar formatting issues throughout the entire text.

7.What does the blue circle in Figure 6 b represent in the text?

8.It is recommended to extend the vertical axis of Figure 7a in the text to present the full picture. The author is requested to carefully examine similar issues in the full text images.

9.The header of Table 1 is not centered, it is recommended to check for similar formatting issues throughout the entire text.

10.The article lacks a discussion section, which is extremely unreasonable. It is recommended that the author supplement the discussion section.

English quality is acceptable

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

 

Reviewer 2

Title: Effects of shredded paper mulch on Komatsuna spinach under three soil moisture levels

Manuscript ID: 2624823

 

Q1. The introduction in the article does not highlight the necessity of this study and does not raise scientific questions. It is recommended to streamline and improve the introduction.

We are grateful for the valuable suggestions and feedback from the reviewers.  We have addressed the reviewer's concern by cutting less important information and by revising highlighted in yellow parts for streamlining and green font for newly added sentences.

Q2. There are currently five images of meteorological data in the article. It is recommended to integrate the meteorological data and place it in one or two images, which is more suitable.

Thank you very much for your suggestion. Four images of meteorological data have been combined into new figures a and b (see below). Combining all data into one figure made it difficult to understand clearly as the legends are different (see figure c below). Therefore, only figures a and b have been inserted into the manuscript.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Figure. Daily daytime climate changes of (a) solar radiation, St (W/m2) and relative humidity, RH (%) (b) wind speed, u  (m/s) and air temperature, Ta (℃ ) (c) All climates changes during growing season (Jan 21 to Apr 9, 2022).

Q3. Please supplement the longitude and latitude of the study area.

According to the web search results, the latitude and longitude of the study area, Ehime   University, Tarumi Campus in Matsuyama, Ehime, Japan are 33.838° N, 132.793° E. The location of the campus can be accessed from the links below.

The longitude and latitude have been added to the manuscript in the Materials and Methods section, L-101

Access | About Ehime University. 愛媛大学. https://www.ehime-u.ac.jp/en/about/access/ (accessed 2023-09-11).

(a) Access | About Ehime University | 愛媛大学. https://www.ehime-u.ac.jp/en/about/access/.

(b) Map - Faculty of Agriculture / Graduate School of Agriculture .... https://www.agr.ehime-u.ac.jp/en/campus/.

Q4. Please supplement the physical and chemical data of the soil, soil nutrient content, bulk density, etc. in the experimental design section.

I thank the reviewer for referring to the chemical data of the soil, however, the chemical composition of the clay soil was not measured. As we had limited resources, this experiment could not measure chemical properties. However, we feel that the results of this study contribute to research in the areas of soil moisture, evapotranspiration, and irrigation schedules for managing valued crops.

 However, Electronic conductivity (EC) of the soil was in a range of 0.41 to 0.6 mS/cm which can be defined as USDA class A (refer to L 136-138).

Q5. What is the root distribution depth of the experimental material Komatsu spinach? Does the size of the pot in the experiment match the root distribution of the crop? Suggest supplementing the distribution of crop roots and the rationality of pot size.

The root distribution depth of the spinach was recorded as 80% of total root length in the upper 0-15 cm depth in field grown spinach and 5% below 30 cm (Schenk et al., 1991). This study used pots which have a height of 17 cm from top to bottom. The following table shows tap root length and width measurements after harvest. However, as the plants were pulled out by hand, the lateral root may have broken and remained in the soil, therefore, the measurements may not be accurate and so are not included in the manuscript.

Treatments	MP1	MP2	MP3	P1	P2	P3
Root length (cm)	12	9	12	11	9	9
Rooth width (cm)	6	6	4	5	7	5

 

                                         

 

 

 

 

Schenk, M.; Heins, B.; Steingrobe, B. The Significance of Root Development of Spinach and Kohlrabi for N Fertilization. Plant and Soil 1991, 135 (2), 197–203.

Q6. There are formatting issues in lines 400 and 408 of the article. It is recommended to check for similar formatting issues throughout the entire text.

Sorry for the careless missing tab. It has been revised and the rest of the manuscript has been checked.

Q7. What does the blue circle in Figure 6 b represent in the text?

 

 

 

 

The blue circle was drawn for error bar symbol which was the wrong symbol. It has been changed into a bar instead of a circle.

Q8. It is recommended to extend the vertical axis of Figure 7a in the text to present the full picture. The author is requested to carefully examine similar issues in the full text images.

  

 

 

 

 

Thank you for noticing that part. New figures have replaced figures 7a and b (no data was available for April 6) in the manuscript.

 Q9. The header of Table 1 is not centered, it is recommended to check for similar formatting issues throughout the entire text.

Thank you for your formatting suggestion. It has been reformatted.

Q10. The article lacks a discussion section, which is extremely unreasonable. It is recommended that the author supplement the discussion section.

Thank you very much for your suggestion. A separate discussion section has been added.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report (New Reviewer)

The introduction is too long.

The use of recycled shredder paper as a multi-material is an interesting idea, but there is insufficient investigation on the use of shredder paper, and authors has not answered the question of why shredder paper is being used from the experiment of this study. Without hypotheses and evaluation regarding why shredder paper is suitable as a multi-material, it is difficult to find novelty in this research. 

Due to the characteristics of shredder paper (lightweight, large bulk volume), it seems practically challenging to use it as a multi-material at this current status. There are factors to consider when using recycled shredder paper, such as the impact of wind and rain, and these need to be investigated as well. 

Furthermore, the explanation of the experimental design appears inappropriate. The treatment should be only used in the context of evaluating plant growth, so the treatment of this study should be treated as the main plot, with two levels (with and without mulch) and three subplots representing three different soil moisture levels. 

Figure 4 requires improvement. Does "With plant" refer to only the left three columns? What does "1E" signify? (Is it a mistake that the number of pots in each treatment does not match?) 

In this experimental design, the aim is to investigate the impact of differences in soil moisture and the presence of mulch material on plant dry matter weight and LAI. Without a comparison to other mulch materials, it is impossible to evaluate the utility of recycled shredder paper. 

One of the expected effects of mulch material is to reduce soil surface evaporation. A comparison of irrigation water quantities is necessary. Additionally, it seems that evapotranspiration cannot be calculated using the methodology of this study because the weight difference in the pots includes plant dry matter weight. 

Furthermore, the fact that SWC-1 shows significant differences in dry matter weight and water use efficiency with and without mulch material, based on only one season, may result in insufficient scientific evidence.

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

 

Reviewer 3

Title: Effects of shredded paper mulch on Komatsuna spinach under three soil moisture levels

Manuscript ID: 2624823

 

Q1. The introduction is too long.

            Thank you for your comments. The introduction has been shortened, by moving some important information to the Study design and Discussion sections.

Q2. The use of recycled shredder paper as a multi-material is an interesting idea, but there is insufficient investigation on the use of shredder paper, and authors has not answered the question of why shredder paper is being used from the experiment of this study. Without hypotheses and evaluation regarding why shredder paper is suitable as a multi-material, it is difficult to find novelty in this research. 

     Shredded paper is a cheap, abundant and eco-friendly as a mulch that can be easily made from unwanted papers at office or home. The hypothesis for the use of shredded paper in this experiment is thinking it as slowing surface evaporation and also to investigate how far mulch can prevent weeds from germinating or competing in terms of light, water and space. It would be advisable to use paper compared with a control according to soil moisture control levels. The weed dry weights are listed here just for your information but we could not compare nor do statistical analysis for the manuscript as weeds were not found in some pots.      

Treatments	MP1	MP2	MP3	M1	M2	M3	P1	P2	P3	BS1	Bs2	Bs3
Weed dry weight (g/pot)	-	0.20	0.41	-	2.50	2.46	-	0.53	0.80	0.53	1.68	1.82

 

Q3. Due to the characteristics of shredder paper (lightweight, large bulk volume), it seems practically challenging to use it as a multi-material at this current status. There are factors to consider when using recycled shredder paper, such as the impact of wind and rain, and these need to be investigated as well. 

            The impact of wind and rain on shredded paper mulch depends on several factors, such as the type and size of paper, the amount and frequency of precipitation, the wind speed and direction, and the soil characteristics etc. These variables could be measured using validated controlled environment or instruments. Future studies could provide more robust and comprehensive evidence on the effects of wind and precipitation on mulching performance; however, these interesting parameters were not included in this experiment.

Q4. Furthermore, the explanation of the experimental design appears inappropriate. The treatment should be only used in the context of evaluating plant growth, so the treatment of this study should be treated as the main plot, with two levels (with and without mulch) and three subplots representing three different soil moisture levels. 

       Thank you very much for your helpful suggestions. We have made changes based on your comments in Experimental design section and abstract.  (Please refer to the L13-15 and, L120-123)

Q5. Figure 4 requires improvement. Does "With plant" refer to only the left three columns? What does "1E" signify? (Is it a mistake that the number of pots in each treatment does not match?).   

“With plant” refers to the first four columns from the left. Thank you for your attention to detail. 

E stands for Extra pots which were prepared with spare plants grown using the lowest soil moisture percentage in case some plants died from water stress. (Therefore, the number of plants does not match).

Figure 4 has been changed to reflect this information.   

Q6. In this experimental design, the aim is to investigate the impact of differences in soil moisture and the presence of mulch material on plant dry matter weight and LAI. Without a comparison to other mulch materials, it is impossible to evaluate the utility of recycled shredder paper. 

It is possible to design an experiment with only one type of mulch comparison with control for evaporation and irrigation scheduling (Ji et al.,2001), (Soothar et al., 2021).

 The reason for choosing white shredded paper mulch over various other mulch materials was explained in the introduction. To evaluate the utility of recycled shredded paper as mulch scientifically, it is possible to compare it with other mulch materials in terms of various criteria such as; the effect of mulch on moisture levels, plant growth, yield and quality, and environmental impacts such as water use and waste reduction.

However, it was difficult to find research where the soil moisture differences responses to mulch have been evaluated.

 

Ji, S.; Unger, P. W. Soil Water Accumulation under Different Precipitation, Potential Evaporation, and Straw Mulch Conditions. Soil Science Society of America Journal 2001, 65 (2), 442–448. https://doi.org/10.2136/sssaj2001.652442x.

           

Soothar, R. K.; Singha, A.; Soomro, S. A.; Chachar, A.; Kalhoro, F.; Rahaman, M. A. Effect of Different Soil Moisture Regimes on Plant Growth and Water Use Efficiency of Sunflower: Experimental Study and Modeling. Bulletin of the National Research Centre 2021, 45 (1), 121. https://doi.org/10.1186/s42269-021-00580-4.

Q7. One of the expected effects of mulch material is to reduce soil surface evaporation. A comparison of irrigation water quantities is necessary. Additionally, it seems that evapotranspiration cannot be calculated using the methodology of this study because the weight difference in the pots includes plant dry matter weight.

Evaporation and transpiration occur simultaneously and there is no easy way of distinguishing between the two processes. As evapotranspiration is the combined term for evaporation and transpiration. It represents the total amount of water that is transferred from the land surface to the atmosphere.

Evapotranspiration can be calculated using the methodology of the pot weight changes daily which includes plant in pot. This is also known as the pot method or the lysimeter method (FAO) (Lu, 2018). By recording the initial and final weight of the pot over a certain period, and subtracting the weight of the plant and the pot itself, one can estimate the amount of water lost by evapotranspiration from the soil and the plant. 

Irrigated water volume data is shown below and not included in the manuscript as various different measurement units were used.  

 

 

Treatment	Total accumulation of irrigated water volume (L/pot)
	SWC-1	SWC-2	SWC-3
MP	16	17	24
M	7	18	23
P	16	19	23
BS	9	15	23

The Irrigation water (L/pot) comparisons figure below was drawn based on the data table above.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Daily Irrigation average	MP1	MP2	MP3	M1	M2	M3	P1	P2	P3	BS1	BS2	BS3
mm/d	7.09	7.67	10.87	3.41	7.94	10.76	7.39	9.01	10.80	4.12	6.77	10.40
cm3 /d	222.82	240.85	341.53	107.04	249.30	338.03	232.16	283.10	339.44	129.58	212.68	326.76

 

 

 

 Lu, Y.; Ma, D.; Chen, X.; Zhang, J. A Simple Method for Estimating Field           Crop Evapotranspiration from Pot Experiments. Water 2018, 10 (12), 1823. https://doi.org/10.3390/w10121823.

 

 Chapter 1 - Introduction to evapotranspiration.      https://www.fao.org/3/x0490e/x0490e04.htm (accessed 2023-09-13).

Q8. Furthermore, the fact that SWC-1 shows significant differences in dry matter weight and water use efficiency with and without mulch material, based on only one season, may result in insufficient scientific evidence.

We appreciate the reviewer’s concern about the generalizability of our results. However, we would like to point out that our experiment was designed to test a specific hypothesis about the effect of mulch on the water use or irrigation scheduling of spinach plants, not to provide a comprehensive assessment of all the factors that may influence spinach growth and quality in different seasons. Therefore, we believe that conducting the experiment in one crop season was sufficient to answer our research question and to demonstrate the validity of our findings.

Moreover, we followed rigorous experimental procedures to ensure the reliability and accuracy of our data. We used a randomized block design with three replicates per treatment, and we controlled for potential confounding variables such as soil moisture and nutrient levels. We also performed appropriate statistical analyses to test the significance and effect size of our results. All these details are described in the Methods and Results sections of our manuscript.

Furthermore, we conducted a thorough literature review to compare and contrast our results with previous studies on spinach or related crops. We found that our results are consistent with the existing knowledge and theories in the field, and we discussed the possible mechanisms and implications of our findings in the Discussion section of our manuscript. We also acknowledged the limitations and future directions of our study in the Conclusion section of our manuscript. Therefore, we respectfully disagree with the reviewer’s comment that our results are invalid because of the single-season experiment. We believe that our study provides valuable insights and contributes to the advancement of science in this area. We hope that the reviewer will reconsider their opinion after reviewing our response and our revised manuscript.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report (Previous Reviewer 2)

• 1. Too many keywords, it is recommended to simplify

 

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report (New Reviewer)

1) Please check the significant digits in the manuscript one again.

e.g., line 111: 11.06 ---> 11.1 or 11 W/m2

Other observed parameters can also be expressed with just one significant digit or rounded to integers, which is sufficient.

2) The y-axis of Figure 2 is not good, radiation (or wind speed) and humidity (or temperature) should be displayed on separate y-axes (the first and the second axis). 

3) Is the y-axis for both (a) and (b) in Figure 6 the plant height?  (b) is not plant height.

 

Author Response

"Please see the attachment."

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

This manuscript is a resubmission of an earlier submission. The following is a list of the peer review reports and author responses from that submission.

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

In my opinion the manuscript titled “Effects of shredded paper mulch on Komatsuna spinach under three soil moisture levels” (agronomy-2166091) submitted to Agronomy is not acceptable as is.

The manuscript is generally well written and it developed a trending topic. However, I think that Authors should revise their own manuscript before it will be acceptable in an International Journal as Agronomy. In my opinion, the Authors should carefully check materials and methods section and pay attention to statistical analysis. In addition, some minor issues should be addressed by the Authors (see .pdf file).

Authors reported Komatsuna spinach as spinach but I found in several other articles where the Authors indicated Komatsuna as spinach mustard or Japanese spinach mustard. In my opinion, the word spinach alone is a bit confusing because of Spinacia oleracea. Please check throughout the manuscript and reported it in a better way.

About DAT, reading the manuscript, I found DAT number reported in several way (e.g. DAT1, DAT-1 or DAT 1). Please check and use only one nomenclature. In my opinion, you should report it as DAT 1 or DAT 22, etc. Likewise, SWC treatments are reported as SWC1 or SWC-1 or SWC 1. Please choose only one not a mixture.

Section and their numeration.

Please check section numeration (1. Introduction; 2 Experimental, 3. Results and !! 4. ? 5. Conclusions). Please check enumeration and considered if “3 results” will be “3. Results and Discussion”. Please check n. 2, it should be Materials and Methods (Agronomy Authors Template).

Statistical Analysis

In my opinion you should improve the statistical analysis. For example, in figures and text it is unclear what analysis you carried out and significant difference between mean. Please check and improve.

 Abstract

Abstract should be revised. Agronomy template suggests that abstract length is about 200 words, so the Authors should shorted the abstract to 200 words.

2. Experimental

L119-120, pag. 3 The climate during the experimental period for daily air temperatures ranged from 1.2 (minimum) to 20.0 °C (maximum). This sentence is unclear. What did you mean with climate? About temperature, what were reported minimum temperature? Are they the average of minimum temperature during the experiment (from transplanting to harvest)? The same questions about maximum temperature. I did not understand.

L120-122 …to protect harmful insects… I think… to protect from harmful insects. Please check.

3. Results

L190-198: in my opinion, these sentences should be put in material and methods section. They are not results but how you measured some meteorological parameters. Please check.

L425-430. I do not agree. You have reported results regarding others crops (41 and 42 as regards other species: Spinach and Lagos Spinach). Please compare your results with those of other Authors who worked on Brassica rapa Komatsuna (there are several works that delighted the relationship between Komatsuna and water availability). Afterwards, you can compare the results (your results and literature) between Komatsuna and other crops.

References

Please check style.

Figure and tables

Please check Figure enumeration and their order across the manuscript. It was a bit confusing ( Please check page 3, 4 Figure 1, 2 , 3 and 4.

 

Figure 1, please check plot disposition. At the left – side (experiment with plants) there seems to be something wrong. There seems to miss one experimental unit (Plant + Mulch level 3). Please check it.

Figure 5, 6, and 7. I would like to see a standard deviation bar on the graphs and statistics…

Table 1. Please add some indication about statistics (e.g. letters and standard deviation or standard error).

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Reviewer 1

1.Authors reported Komatsuna spinach as spinach but I found in several other articles where the Authors indicated Komatsuna as spinach mustard or Japanese spinach mustard. In my opinion, the word spinach alone is a bit confusing because of Spinacia oleracea. Please check throughout the manuscript and reported it in a better way.

Thank you for the comments. We have revised all confusing issue about the crop’s name into Komatsuna spinach.

2. About DAT, reading the manuscript, I found DAT number reported in several way (e.g., DAT1, DAT-1 or DAT 1). Please check and use only one nomenclature. In my opinion, you should report it as DAT 1 or DAT 22, etc. Likewise, SWC treatments are reported as SWC1 or SWC-1 or SWC 1. Please choose only one not a mixture.

Thank you for pointing this out. As suggested by the reviewer, we have updated all acronyms consistent into DAT 1 and SWC-1 format in all paragraph.

Section and their numeration.

3. Please check section numeration (1. Introduction; 2 Experimental, 3. Results and!! 4.? 5. Conclusions). Please check enumeration and considered if “3 results” will be “3. Results and Discussion”. Please check n. 2, it should be Materials and Methods (Agronomy Authors Template).

Thank you very much for your suggestion. We have revised them according to Agronomy template.

Statistical Analysis

4. In my opinion you should improve the statistical analysis. For example, in figures and text, it is unclear what analysis you carried out and significant difference between mean. Please check and improve.

Thank you for point this out. We have averaged the 3 replications to compare between means. As in L182-187, those with mulch and without mulch comparison groups of two under the same SWC were compared with a paired t-test to calculate differences at P 0.05. For comparing more than 2 groups, such as among three SWC levels, the Bonferroni test was applied at alpha values instead of 5% probability. Symbols were noted from both statistical tests in a figure.

 Abstract

5. Abstract should be revised. Agronomy template suggests that abstract length is about 200 words, so the Authors should shorten the abstract to 200 words.

Thank you very much for your suggestion. We have revised accordingly. 

2. Experimental
3. L119-120, pag. 3 The climate during the experimental period for daily air temperatures ranged from 1.2 (minimum) to 20.0 °C (maximum). This sentence is unclear. What did you mean with climate? About temperature, what were reported minimum temperature? Are they the average of minimum temperature during the experiment (from transplanting to harvest)? The same questions about maximum temperature. I did not understand.

Thank you for the comments. Regarding the climatic conditions, they are average of the minimum temperature during the experiment, from transplanting to harvest April 12, where harvest was April 9^th. My apologies for adding extra days in supplementary data for climatic conditions. The station was set up before spinach being transplanted and the data shows as min and max by including 3 days after being harvested. The corrected data only from transplanting to harvest and additional explanation in L 120- L123 manuscript.

7. L120-122 …to protect harmful insects… I think… to protect from harmful insects. Please check.

Thank you for pointing out the missing preposition in sentence. We have added *from for making the sentence meaningful.

3. Results
4. L190-198: in my opinion, these sentences should be put in material and methods section. They are not results but how you measured some meteorological parameters. Please check.

As suggested by the reviewer, we have updated some the information in more appropriate place in material and methods section.

9. L 425-430. I do not agree. You have reported results regarding others crops (41 and 42 as regards other species: Spinach and Lagos Spinach). Please compare your results with those of other Authors who worked on Brassica rapa Komatsuna (there are several works that delighted the relationship between Komatsuna and water availability). Afterwards, you can compare the results (your results and literature) between Komatsuna and other crops.

Published literature that is available on the subject of evapotranspiration for Komatsuna were not able to find. We were unable to find the research done with Komatsuna which included total evapotranspiration.

10. References

Thanks for the comments. We have organized the reference section into better format.

11. Please check style.

Thanks for the comments. We have organized the ref style into ACS format for all.

12. Figure and tables

Thanks for your kind suggestion. We have updated accordingly.

13. Please check Figure enumeration and their order across the manuscript. It was a bit confusing (Please check page 3, 4 Figure 1, 2, 3 and 4.

 Thank you very much for pointing out the figures and cited sentence not in the same page. We had modified them to get closer to out of difficulty for adjustment. 

14. Figure 1, please check plot disposition. At the left – side (experiment with plants) there seems to be something wrong. There seems to miss one experimental unit (Plant + Mulch level 3). Please check it.

Thank you very much for pointing out the plot error. We apologize for the error. We have, accordingly, revised the experiment plot illustration in manuscript with MP3(Plant + Mulch level 3), also by adding the spare treatment pots we used for the sake of sudden death preparation.

15. Figure 5, 6, and 7. I would like to see a standard deviation bar on the graphs and statistics…

Thanks for the reviewer's comment. Standard error bars (at 5% of values) were added by using Kaleida graph software.

16. Table 1. Please add some indications about statistics (e.g. letters and standard deviation or standard error).

Thanks for the suggestion. The table has modified and P values with statistical differences were added. If the reviewer thinks bar graph better suit in this situation, this is the bar graph drawn based on the table but not in the manuscript.

                                                             

 

 

 

 

 

 

Figure Irrigation days intervals average for the whole growing season.

Statistical analysis of t-Test: Paired Two Sample for Means shows ns for all comparisons.

 

 

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

Review

Of manuscript number 2166091 submitted to agronomy

In this study, a pot-grown Komatsuna spinach (Brassica rapa var. perviridis) experiment with the factorial design was conducted (under three conditions of soil water content (SWC) treatments i.e., 20, 25, 30% with and without shredded paper mulch. This present work aims for understanding how soil moisture affects the vegetative development of Komatsuna spinach for the optimization of efficient water use with better quality.

The structure of the paper is relatively complete, the layout is standard, and the test design is scientific and reasonable. However, the introduction was written in a relatively chaotic way, which did not highlight the necessity of carrying out this research. The experimental details and results need to be further improved. In summary, it is suggested that the paper be major modified and submitted for review again.

Some comments are presented as follows:

1、           In introduction, the focus of the description is not clear, and it is recommended to pay attention to the logic of the introduction of this study rather than a segmented list.

2、           Line 41, noting where the reference is cited.

3、           Lines 64-76, for the current background of waste paper, it is recommended to reduce the redundancy.

4、           Lines 90-99, the conclusions listed are not all to maintain soil moisture levels, and it is recommended to check.

5、           In experimental details, in addition to the base fertilizer, is fertilization carried out during the growth period of each treatment? What fertilizer to apply? How much to give? How is it applied?

6、           In experimental details, what type of shredded paper is it? Because different types of paper mulch also have different effects on soil moisture.

7、           Lines 112-114 are proposed for deletion.

8、           Lines 154-155, does it refer to the saturated moisture?

9、           Lines 160-161 suggest adding references.

10、It is recommended to add references to the measurement method of spinach physiological change index.

 

11、In results, rainfall during the trial is recommended in the experimental design section. 

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Reviewer 2

1,   In introduction, the focus of the description is not clear, and it is recommended to pay attention to the logic of the introduction of this study rather than a segmented list.

Thanks for the reviewer's comment. I did modify  introduction section. My apologies if I could not meet your standard and failed to understand the comment.

2, Line 41, noting where the reference is cited.

Thanks for the suggestion. For adding the comma as, [2] which is not appropriate, but after, as pointed out by the reviewer in the manuscript, we put the comma in the correct way to cite the phrase before [2].

 

3、 Lines 64-76, for the current background of waste paper, it is recommended to reduce the redundancy.

Thank you for the comments. We have lessened the background information of waste paper into short. 

4、 Lines 90-99, the conclusions listed are not all to maintain soil moisture levels, and it is recommended to check.

To avoid any misunderstandings and to address the reviewer’s concern, we have added the following sentence: “There were various attempts to replace plastic use in agriculture for the sake of environmental concerns after harvest and other chosen approaches reported by previous researchers.

statement:

5、 In experimental details, in addition to the base fertilizer, is fertilization carried out during the growth period of each treatment? What fertilizer to apply? How much to give? How is it applied?

Thank you for the comments. We did not add more additional fertiliser for the rest growing period. The basal manure as a fertiliser we applied once was 100% chicken manure we bought from the DCM home centre.  The amount we applied was chicken 450 g per pot for a 2 kg soil mixture。The way we applied manure was by incorporating evenly with soil by hands. 　

6、  In experimental details, what type of shredded paper is it? Because different types of paper mulch also have different effects on soil moisture.

Thank you for the comments. The type of paper, we used was office paper with font in black over white paper.

7、  Lines 112-114 are proposed for deletion.

We have deleted and marked the deleted part in the comments box of the manuscript.

8、  Lines 154-155, does it refer to the saturated moisture?

It refers to the saturated soil moisture condition. When the soil reached into the desired SWC, the soil in the pot is saturated by additional irrigation and the excess water after soil saturation is drained out from the bottom holes of pot. The cycle repeated once the soil moisture dried down to the targeted SWC levels.

9、  Lines 160-161 suggest adding references.

Thank you very much for pointing this out. We have added references for WUE as pointed out by the reviewer in the manuscript.

 

10、It is recommended to add references to the measurement method of spinach physiological change index.

We have, accordingly, amended the manuscript by adding the necessary citation about growth measurement imposed by other researchers.

11、In results, rainfall during the trial is recommended in the experimental design section.

Thank you for the suggestion. We have moved the figure from result section into material and method section.

 

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 3 Report

The paper has several critical issues which prevent it being considered at its current form:

 1.     It is well-know fact that mulch can reduce soil evaporation. The paper should not only consider the water-saving results of the shredded paper mulch, but also how this material being different from that the normal mulch material such as straw or plastic. There should be more information on the soil temperature under the shredded paper mulch, how the mulch material decay and its effects on soil environment. Just focusing on the water conservation effects of the mulch lacks novelty.

2.     The soil water conditions of the experiment were not well designed. What’s the field capacity and wilting point of the soil used? Without the information, it is difficult to decide the water levels of the SWC at 20, 25 and 30%. And for soil water contents, the unit should be defined, since g/g and v/v are quite different. And why setting up those three water levels? The water levels would affect the results of this study.

3.     During the experiment, the frequency and amount to maintain the water contents should be important. This study used the soil water content at 5 cm soil depth to deciding the irrigation timing, how the soil water contents at other depths? Why the water added to the drainage occurring, since this control might not be very precisely. Why not using the weights of the pot to control a certain soil water content. The control of the soil water conditions in this study were not scientifically sound.

Author Response

Reviewer 3

1. It is well-known fact that mulch can reduce soil evaporation. The paper should not only consider the water-saving results of the shredded paper mulch, but also how this material being different from that the normal mulch material such as straw or plastic. There should be more information on the soil temperature under the shredded paper mulch, how the mulch material decay and its effects on soil environment. Just focusing on the water conservation effects of the mulch lacks novelty.

We understand and respect the reviewer’s point of view and we agree that those are limitations of the study. We have added this as a limitation for not analysing (decay rate, soil environment, soil temperature) on discussion section in manuscript. Our results indicates that the ability of paper mulch’ contribution to improve Komatsuna vegetable in comparison with bare soil to improve moisture preservation and water use efficiency. For assessing how the much decay and its effects on soil environment under different environmental conditions and different weathers, more research work assessment such as using thermal analysis (Fourier-transformed infrared spectroscopy) or molecular weight analysis which is out of our research objectives.

2. 2. The soil water conditions of the experiment were not well designed. What’s the field capacity and wilting point of the soil used? Without the information, it is difficult to decide the water levels of the SWC at 20, 25 and 30%. And for soil water contents, the unit should be defined, since g/g and v/v are quite different. And why setting up those three water levels? The water levels would affect the results of this study.

We thank reviewer for the helpful suggestion. We have realized that we have not expressed ourselves clearly enough in our text. The field capacity was an average of 2.23 pF (0.335 m³/m³ Water Content) after two days of draining from the result of 6 pots’ measurement. As for the wilting point of the soil used, it was not measured with laboratory-based measurement, but estimated as 11.16% SWC, which is one third of the soil moisture content at field capacity average.  We set SWC lower limit level 20%.

For units, we have converted pot weight-lifter g/g into mm but for SWC measurement was converted from VWC/VWC.

3. 3. During the experiment, the frequency and amount to maintain the water contents should be important. This study used the soil water content at 5 cm soil depth to deciding the irrigation timing, how the soil water contents at other depths? Why the water added to the drainage occurring, since this control might not be very precisely. Why not using the weights of the pot to control a certain soil water content. The control of the soil water conditions in this study were not scientifically sound.

Thank you very much for pointing this out. A soil moisture sensor was deployed at 5 cm depth under the consideration of rooting system of the crop Komatsuna spinach, which has a shallow root length.  For other soil depths, we think about minimal disturbance of the soil and disturbance of the natural vegetation. According to our knowledge, our description of the methodology, irrigation applied until the water started to drain off. We followed the description by (Nagase & Dunnett, 2011).

           Nagase, A., & Dunnett, N. (2011). The relationship between percentage of organic matter in substrate and plant growth in extensive green roofs. Landscape and Urban Planning, 103(2), 230–236. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.landurbplan.2011.07.012

 

 

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

it ok by me.

Author Response

Thank you for your comments.

Reviewer 2 Report

At present, the main coverage mode is plastic film coverage. I would like to know the comparison results between shredded paper coverage and plastic film coverage. I hope to see it in the author's follow-up research.Here are some suggestions to help the author improve the manuscript:

1.Figure 6 in the manuscript is only marked with Figure b, and Figure a is missing.

2.I think the author can simplify the conclusion. The current conclusion is too long.

3.There is a problem with the label in Figure 4. There is no figure a, only b, c, d and e.

4.The scientific issues of this study are not raised in the introduction, so it is suggested that the scientific issues of the article be raised in the last paragraph of the introduction to make the introduction complete.

5.It is suggested that the author consider adding keywords. The current keywords cannot cover the content of the article well.

6.Are the three gradients of water treatment in the test design reasonable? Is here any reference to prove it?

 

Author Response

Manuscript ID: 2166091

Title: Effects of shredded paper mulch on Komatsuna spinach under three soil moisture levels

 

REVIEWER #2

Q1. Figure 6 in the manuscript is only marked with Figure b, and Figure a is missing.

Thank you for the comment. We have added (a) in Figure caption.

Q2.I think the author can simplify the conclusion. The current conclusion is too long.

Thank you again for your valuable comment. We have deleted Line 615, 619 and some modifications in Line 607 and 626 in the conclusion part to simplify accordingly.

Q3. There is a problem with the label in Figure 4. There is no figure a, only b, c, d and e.

My apologies for not noticing the caption change. Previously, Figure 4.a was for rainfall figure and we moved up to the experimental design section according to the reviewer’s comment in the first round. We have revised Figure captions in order.   

 

Q4. The scientific issues of this study are not raised in the introduction, so it is suggested that the scientific issues of the article be raised in the last paragraph of the introduction to make the introduction complete.

Respected reviewer, according to your suggestion, we have added sentences in the introduction part for raising the questions at Line 112-117,122,127.

Q5. It is suggested that the author consider adding keywords. The current keywords cannot cover the content of the article well.

Thank you very much for your valuable suggestions. We have added 4 more keywords in the abstract.  

Q6. Are the three gradients of water treatment in the test design reasonable? Is here any reference to prove it?

We have carefully considered all the SWC upper and lower limits for irrigation scheduling based on the evaluation of the field capacity and wilting point. We have realized that we have not expressed ourselves enough in our text. The field capacity was an average of 2.23 pF (0.335 m³/m³ Water Content) after two days of draining from the result of the 6 pots’ measurement. As for the wilting point of the soil used, it was not measured with laboratory-based measurement but was estimated as 11.16% SWC, which is one-third of the soil moisture content at the field capacity average.  We set SWC lower limit level 20% for avoiding the risk of test plants dying during the experimental period.

 

One of the references is shown with the citation below. The three SWC intervals, set between 20%,25% and 30%, we believed we could have had no clear differences in case we set either beyond 20% and 30% or between, where our previous experimental result with soybean under at 5 different SWCs show no significant differences in leaf area index, Plant height and evapotranspiration rates.   

Oue, H.; Mon, M. M.; Irsyad, F.; Utami, A. S.; Zaw, Y. Stomatal and Photosynthetic Responses of Soybean with Two Types of Mulch under Different Soil Water Conditions. IOP Conf. Ser.: Earth Environ. Sci. 2022, 1059 (1), 012038. https://doi.org/10.1088/1755-1315/1059/1/012038.

 

Author Response File: Author Response.docx