Effects of Annual Straw Incorporation Combined with Application of Nitrogen Fertilizer in Rice Season on Dry Matter and Nutrient Accumulation Characteristics of Subsequent Rapeseed

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The authors investigated the effect of straw and nitrogen fertilizer in rice season on the properties of subsequent rapeseed. Generally, the topic is interesting. However, the manuscript is poorly prepared with many errors.

The summary is too long and does not highlight the most important points. Please concisely present mainly the objective, innovation, methods, and the most important results of the study.

On the other hand, the Introduction is too short. The demonstration of research innovation against the background of available literature should be enhanced.

lines 103-106: Why were these varieties selected?

Subsection 2.4. Data statistical analysis should be corrected and be related to statistical analysis only. Moreover Subsection 2.4.5. relating to the statistical analysis of the results should be described in more detail.

The results are presented quite well.

Future research should be indicated in detail.

5. Conclusion: The many used abbreviations make this section difficult to understand.

lines 432-446 should be corrected.

English errors and others should be corrected.

Errors in Reference should be corrected.

There are some English errors.

Author Response

Dear reviewer,

Thank you very much for your comments.We have also made corresponding modifications in the manuscript. The following is my reply:

 

The authors investigated the effect of straw and nitrogen fertilizer in rice season on the properties of subsequent rapeseed. Generally, the topic is interesting. However, the manuscript is poorly prepared with many errors.

We strongly agree with your viewpoint that studying the effect of straw and nitrogen fertilizer in rice season on the properties of subsequent rapeseed is indeed a novel and interesting topic.At the same time, we deeply regret that there are many errors in the manuscript.We are also doing our best to make the manuscript better presented. Hopefully, it will get better and better in future manuscript preparation.

 

The summary is too long and does not highlight the most important points. Please concisely present mainly the objective, innovation, methods, and the most important results of the study.

Thank you very much for your suggestion, and we have made the corresponding changes in the manuscript.

 

On the other hand, the Introduction is too short. The demonstration of research innovation against the background of available literature should be enhanced.

Thank you very much for your suggestions. Your suggestions have enriched the content of our manuscript.We have made corresponding changes in the introduction of the manuscript.In the study of rice-rapeseed rotation, there was no study on the effect of straw and nitrogen fertilizer in rice season on the dry matter accumulation and nutrient accumulation of subsequent rapeseed.We hope that the manuscript will fill in this gap. Thanks again to the reviewers for their suggestions.

 

lines 103-106: Why were these varieties selected?

Nei5you5399, an three-line hybrid indica rice cultivar, moderate ripening period, medium yield and excellent rice quality. It is suitable for planting in southwest China, in areas including Yunnan, Guizhou Province.Yixiangyou2115, an hybrid indica rice cultivar developed 10 years ago that exhibits a large number of spikelets per panicle (over 150 spikelets), was used as the experimental material. As a super rice cultivar that can achieve high yield and good quality under climatic conditions with little sunshine, this cultivar is widely grown in southwest China, in areas including Guizhou, Sichuan, and Yunnan Province.Youyan 817, a hybrid rapeseed cultivar with stable yield, is suitable for planting in Sichuan, Chongqing, Guizhou, Yunnan and other major winter rapeseed producing areas in China.

 

 

 

Subsection 2.4. Data statistical analysis should be corrected and be related to statistical analysis only. Moreover Subsection 2.4.5. relating to the statistical analysis of the results should be described in more detail.

Thanks to the reviewer for pointing out the error, which has been corrected in Subsection 2.4.

 

The results are presented quite well.

Thank you. We will try to do better.

 

Future research should be indicated in detail.

Thank you for your suggestions. Your suggestions have enriched the content of our manuscript. Future research is now presented in 4 Conclusions.

 

Conclusion: The many used abbreviations make this section difficult to understand.

lines 432-446 should be corrected.

Thank you for your suggestion, we have corrected it in the new manuscript.

 

English errors and others should be corrected.

We are sorry for the English mistakes and other errors.We're doing our best tomake it as good as we can. So we thank LetPub (www.letpub.com) for its linguistic assistance during the preparation of this manuscript.Order number 5358988. we are also working hard to correct the error.

 

Errors in Reference should be corrected.

Thank you for pointing out the error, your suggestion made our manuscript more rigorous. We have corrected it in the new manuscript.

 

Kind regards.

Reviewer 2 Report

The presented material is not worked out in detail. If we are talking about a comparative assessment of the use of straw incorporation into the soil and fertilizers for growing rice and rapeseed, then an analysis of the nutrient content in the soil before and after application is necessary. Plant uptake of phosphorus can be affected by soil pH and iron content.

If there was a crop rotation on the plots, then it is necessary to provide a crop rotation scheme.

The methods are described very briefly and incompletely, especially for statistical data processing.

What is the novelty of the research?

Are 4 representative plants sufficient for statistical analysis?

It is not clear how many times the straw was plowed over during the experiment?

Were there similar climatic conditions during the experiment? This is very important information that needs to be added.

Work needs to be improved.

Author Response

Dear reviewer,

Thank you very much for your comments.Your comments have made our manuscript richer and more rigorous. We have also made corresponding modifications in the manuscript. The following is my reply:

 

The presented material is not worked out in detail. If we are talking about a comparative assessment of the use of straw incorporation into the soil and fertilizers for growing rice and rapeseed, then an analysis of the nutrient content in the soil before and after application is necessary. Plant uptake of phosphorus can be affected by soil pH and iron content.

We thank the reviewer for their suggestions. Your suggestions have made our manuscript more rigorous.We are also doing our best to improve it. More detailed materials we have added in 1.1 Experimental Materials. For soil nutrient content before and after application, we only gave an average value because our study focused on above-ground dry matter accumulation and nutrient accumulation. For the analysis of soil nutrient content before and after planting, we plan to publish a manuscript in the near future, and the manuscript is already in preparation. The concern that phosphorus uptake by plants can be affected by soil pH and iron content will also be taken up as a future concern, and we thank the reviewers again for the advice given.

 

If there was a crop rotation on the plots, then it is necessary to provide a crop rotation scheme.

We relied on a localization experiment of straw return with nitrogen fertilizer to conduct related research.The localization experiment, using a rice-rapeseed crop rotation cropping model, began in 2017 and was conducted in Changji Town, Sansui County, Guizhou Province, China (26°56′33.2″N, 108°45′12.1″E). In the 2017 rice season, no rapeseed straw was returned to the field. By mid-April 2021 when the rape was harvested, the rice straw was returned to the field four times, and the rapeseed straw was returned to the field a total of three times. Each year, rapeseed is transplanted in late October and harvested in early May. Rice seedings are raised in late April, transplanted in early June and harvested in early October each year. Straw are retrieved and crushed, and then turned and buried by manual way to return to the field. The crop rotation scheme has been re-added in the 1.2 experimental design.

 

The methods are described very briefly and incompletely, especially for statistical data processing.

Thank you very much for your suggestion. Your suggestion will make our manuscript more specific.We have written in more detail about statistical data processing.

 

 

What is the novelty of the research?

In the study of rice-rapeseed rotation, there was no study on the effect of straw and nitrogen fertilizer in rice season on the dry matter accumulation and nutrient accumulation of subsequent rapeseed. We hope that the manuscript will fill in this gap. When you asked this question, we realized that we had not focused enough on innovation in our manuscript, making it not very clear to the reader. Related issues we have refined in the manuscript.

 

Are 4 representative plants sufficient for statistical analysis?

Thank you to the reviewers for the question. Four representative plants are sufficient for statistical analysis. For the following reasons: firstly, the workload issue; secondly, three replications were done for each treatment of our experiment; thirdly, we selected 10 consecutive hills with more consistent plant growth in each plot using the fixed-point observation method, i.e., 10 hills in the same location at the time of shoot, bolting stage, initial flowering stage, terminal flowering stage, and mature stage, and measured their plant height and took the average. Then 4 plants were taken according to the average of plant height, which are representative plants. The relevant changes have been modified in manuscript 1.3.1.

 

It is not clear how many times the straw was plowed over during the experiment?

Our experiment began in the 2017 rice season without rapeseed straw to return to the field. As of mid-April 2021 when rapeseed was harvested, rice straw was returned to the field four times and rapeseed straw was returned to the field a total of three times. Detailed descriptions are added in 1.2 Experimental design. Thanks again for your advice.

 

Were there similar climatic conditions during the experiment? This is very important information that needs to be added.

Climatic conditions are very important for crops. Thank you for pointing out the shortcomings in our manuscript. The climatic conditions have been described in succinct language in 1.1 Experimental sites and materials.

 

Work needs to be improved.

Special thanks to the reviewer for these detailed suggestions, your suggestions will make our next work better.

 

Kind regards.

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

The manuscript has been improved.

Reviewer 2 Report

Thanks for correcting the comments.