The Effect of Long-Term Farmyard Manure and Mineral Fertilizer Application on the Increase in Soil Organic Matter Quality of Cambisols

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments to Author

The manuscript describes a detailed study on SOC quality and quantity associated with the application of organic and inorganic fertilizer. The quality parameter like total glomalin content and soil organic matter carbon, fulvic acid, humic acid, carbon hot water extraction, potential wettability index (PWI), and aromaticity index were measured appropriately to support the purpose of the study. The topic is interesting and suitable for the journal Agronomy. The results are meaningful for us to see the effects of long-term application of combination organic and inorganic fertilizer on soil organic carbon.

In particular, I have one comment regarding to the method section. I think authors need to add information about soil sampling method. Soil sampling depth, method and tool used and soil treatment after sampling and preparation prior to analysis.

It's essential to recognize that the study's concentration on a specific geographic area (the Czech Republic) may restrict its ability to reflect the diverse soil and environmental conditions present in other regions with distinct climates and land management practices. By acknowledging this limitation, readers gain a clearer understanding of the study's constraints when extrapolating the results to broader contexts

General comments

In the methods section, I found no information related to soil sampling (i.e. depth, kind of soil sample collected (using core or just disturbed soil). Also soil treatment after sampling regarding certain analysis.

I suggest author can add one short paragraph explaining this.

Author Response

Please see the attachment

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

The combination of inorganic fertilizers and manure has been seen to iThe work is quite extensive and tries to optimize the use of variables to understand how to qualify the organic matter content of the soil in the different treatments used, but;

1.     What experimental design did they use?; How many repetitions? I didn't find it... this is important so that the statistical analysis is responsible for defining the influences of the parameters and does not have to "normalize", a good statistical design with its repetitions separates the effects of each variable, too  as their synergy.

2.     You said “A strong correlation between total glomalin content and soil organic matter carbon, fulvic acid, humic acid, carbon hot water extraction, potential wettability index (PWI), and aromaticity index was established. PWI is also strongly correlated with  these indicators”. The above is obvious, they all have the same origin and have organic carbon, therefore it would be prudent to obtain regression equations, so that only one is measured and the others are weighted.

3.     The manure used, what were its characteristics? The manure varies a lot with the passing of the days, although  say is referred to as "fresh"

4.      I do not think it is convenient to use principal components, it only confuses the results, I do not see the subsequent use and they are not easy to interpret

5.     Please organize the writing of results, you can use the objectives and hypotheses to answer and give an order to the writing of the results, also to the discussion, manage subchapters... it took a lot of work to read.

Notes

Carbon sequestration is due to the flora and fauna content of the soil, the more fertile, the more carbon sequestration, and this fertility is based on the amount of humus in the soil, therefore, it is normal to see that the combinations have the best results.

The combination of inorganic fertilizers and manure has been seen to improve the degradation of the latter. For this reason, its combined use is recommendedmprove the degradation of the latter. For this reason, its combined use is recommended.

Author Response

Please see the attachment

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf