Sugarcane Row Gaps Assessment over Successive Burned and Unburned Annual Harvests

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

This study evaluated the impact of burned and unburned harvesting systems on the occurrence sugarcane row gaps over annual harvests. This is an interesting study with high significance of content. But the description of the experiment method is not clear enough. I recommend publication of this study once the issues noted below will be taken care of:

1. The specific reasons for the existence of gaps caused by mechanical harvesting were not analyzed.

2. There are fewer factors and indicators in the experiment, and expansion is needed to achieve a more scientific analysis of the results.

3. What type of machinery is used for harvesting? Is it possible that the gabs can be decreased if other different harvesting machinery was used?

4. Will the operation parameters of the machinery also have an impact on the operation effect? For example, will the effect of gaps be different when the harvester operating at high, medium, and low speeds?

5. The experiment period is uncertain, better be clarified.

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Agosto, 2023

Thank you for inviting us to revise our manuscript entitled “Sugarcane Row Gaps Assessment Over Successive Burned and Unburned Annual Harvests”. We have improved the manuscript according to the reviewer’s suggestions. We would like to thank the reviewers for their helpful comments. Significant changes in the text are highlighted in red in the manuscript. Please find our answers to the specific reviewer’s comment below. 

Reviewer 1

This study evaluated the impact of burned and unburned harvesting systems on the occurrence sugarcane row gaps over annual harvests. This is an interesting study with high significance of content. But the description of the experiment method is not clear enough. I recommend publication of this study once the issues noted below will be taken care of:

Reviewer comment -: 1. The specific reasons for the existence of gaps caused by mechanical harvesting were not analyzed. Author reply: Many thanks for your comments. We agree that the investigation into the existence of row gaps could be further explored, but we also consider that analysis carried out by our study can help to understand the continuous growth of row gaps as a function of number of harvests.

Reviewer comment -: 2. There are fewer factors and indicators in the experiment, and expansion is needed to achieve a more scientific analysis of the results. Author reply: The existence of row gaps can be induced by mechanical damage due to machinery, plant genetics or pests. However, our study focused on harvesting systems using machines - so the investigation of row gaps in our study is due to machinery traffic. The study specifically used gaps data, such as length, number and class of row gaps, but we may consider using additional ground data in future work.

Reviewer comment -: 3. What type of machinery is used for harvesting? Is it possible that the gabs can be decreased if other different harvesting machinery was used?

Author reply: The machinery used in the unburned harvest is a sugarcane harvester (model CH670) and the transshipment system (agricultural tractor and transshipment) and in the burned harvest conventional loaders and dumpers. These are the types of machinery commonly used in sugarcane harvesting; in the study, it was not possible to analyze the effect of other machinery.

Reviewer comment -: 4. Will the operation parameters of the machinery also have an impact on the operation effect? For example, will the effect of gaps be different when the harvester operating at high, medium, and low speeds? Author reply: This is an interesting question that could be investigated. Unfortunately, speed traffic was not a factor considered in our study. But we will consider this suggestion in a future experiment.

Reviewer comment -: 5. The experiment period is uncertain, better be clarified. Author reply: Thank you for the suggestion, the description of the analysis dates are described in the manuscript, Table 2 (L113 to L115).

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

The manuscript looks quite interesting; however, I would recommend some major modification, that will further improve the quality of the paper:

Authors should differentiate between the burned and unburned treatment me well in the abstract as highlighted in the attached file.

Conclusion of the results in the Abstract section needs to be reconstructed again; needs to be specific on burned or unburned; as both are different treatments. Therefore, the conclusion should either recommend on one of the treatments.

I suggest the Authors to use plant-cane harvest (P-CH), first ratoon harvest (1RT), second ratoon harvest (2RH), and third ratoon harvest (3RH).......instead of H1, H2, and H3.

I suggest the Authors should use error bars and error margins in the Figure 5 and 6 instead of data values on the graph.

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Agosto, 2023

Thank you for inviting us to revise our manuscript entitled “Sugarcane Row Gaps Assessment Over Successive Burned and Unburned Annual Harvests”. We have improved the manuscript according to the reviewer’s suggestions. We would like to thank the reviewers for their helpful comments. Significant changes in the text are highlighted in red in the manuscript. Please find our answers to the specific reviewer’s comment below. 

Reviewer 2

The manuscript looks quite interesting; however, I would recommend some major modification, that will further improve the quality of the paper:

Reviewer comment -: Authors should differentiate between the burned and unburned treatment me well in the abstract as highlighted in the attached file. Author reply: Applied as suggested (L28).

Reviewer comment -: Conclusion of the results in the Abstract section needs to be reconstructed again; needs to be specific on burned or unburned; as both are different treatments. Therefore, the conclusion should either recommend on one of the treatments. Author reply: In the present study there was no significant difference between the burned and unburned treatments, therefore the authors concluded that the presence of gaps increased throughout the harvests in both treatments, and it was not possible to indicate a specific type of harvest.

Reviewer comment -: I suggest the Authors to use plant-cane harvest (P-CH), first ratoon harvest (1RT), second ratoon harvest (2RH), and third ratoon harvest (3RH).......instead of H1, H2, and H3. Author reply: Many thanks, applied as suggested (L107 to 109).

Reviewer comment -: I suggest the Authors should use error bars and error margins in the Figure 5 and 6 instead of data values on the graph. Author reply: The authors tried to insert the bar and error margins, but the scales were not within the standard necessary for graphic visualization. Therefore, we would like to keep the graph data without prejudice to the current interpretation of the results.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

There is no clear methodology (size of the elementary plots, number of repetitions, no initial number of plants in the rows, no concrete measurement data, no statistical processing methods, no clearly marked differences, etc.)

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

English is quite simple, easy to read, with few mistakes... it needs small corrections

Author Response

Setembro, 2023

Thank you for inviting us to revise our manuscript entitled “Sugarcane Row Gaps Assessment Over Successive Burned and Unburned Annual Harvests”. We have improved the manuscript according to the reviewer’s suggestions. We would like to thank the reviewers for their helpful comments. Significant changes in the text are highlighted in red in the manuscript. Please find our answers to the specific reviewer’s comment below.

Reviewer 4

Reviewer comment -: There is no clear methodology (size of the elementary plots, number of repetitions, no initial number of plants in the rows, no concrete measurement data, no statistical processing methods, no clearly marked differences, etc.). Author reply: Thank you for the suggestions, we adopted Stolf (1986) methodology for counting and measuring gaps, we used two areas measuring 100 x 100 m², burned and unburned, and 12 sugarcane cultivation lines were selected within from each of the experimental areas. The sugarcane row gap number and length for the burned and unburned harvesting systems, as well as over sugarcane annual stages were evaluated using a 95% confidence interval for the means.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 4 Report

- I congratulate the authors on the submitted paper. It is a local problem related to the cultivation of sugar cane. The world is a global village and all scientific manuscripts are welcome. However, this manuscript does not give enough new light on the changes in the physical parameters of the soil, on the problem of soil compaction, the stability of structural aggregates and other changes in the physical complex of the soil. The manuscript should be improved with THAT specified parameters.

- add basic chemical soil parameters

- I'm a little confused, the texture of the soil in layer 0-20 is silty-sandy (83% sand), in layer 0.20-0.40 sandy loam, but 79% sand????

- You used term, row: 93 conventional soil preparation. In Europe Conventional soil preparation os something other. I suggest, please use conservation or reduced soil preparation

Author Response

Agosto, 2023

Thank you for inviting us to revise our manuscript entitled “Sugarcane Row Gaps Assessment Over Successive Burned and Unburned Annual Harvests”. We have improved the manuscript according to the reviewer’s suggestions. We would like to thank the reviewers for their helpful comments. Significant changes in the text are highlighted in red in the manuscript. Please find our answers to the specific reviewer’s comment below. 

Reviewer 3

I congratulate the authors on the submitted paper. It is a local problem related to the cultivation of sugar cane. The world is a global village and all scientific manuscripts are welcome. However, this manuscript does not give enough new light on the changes in the physical parameters of the soil, on the problem of soil compaction, the stability of structural aggregates and other changes in the physical complex of the soil. The manuscript should be improved with THAT specified parameters.

Reviewer comment -: add basic chemical soil parameters. Author reply: No chemical analyzes of the soil were carried out for this experiment. But we will consider this suggestion in a future experiment.

Reviewer comment -: I'm a little confused, the texture of the soil in layer 0-20 is silty-sandy (83% sand), in layer 0.20-0.40 sandy loam, but 79% sand????

Author reply: Many thanks, applied as suggested, Table 1 (L86).

Reviewer comment -: You used term, row: conventional soil preparation. In Europe Conventional soil preparation os something other. I suggest, please use conservation or reduced soil preparation. Author reply: Many thanks for the suggestion. We have examined and considered that our crop system does not suit minimum tillage or conservative systems. So, the better term is conventional tillage. We would like to maintain this term. We added some sentences to improve the understanding of this term (L 94-95)

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 3 Report

Now is much better

Quite good

Reviewer 4 Report

Congratulations to authors