Nitrogen, Phosphorus, and Potassium Uptake in Rain-Fed Corn as Affected by NPK Fertilization
, Steven Kyle Sawatzky 2, Matthew Thomas 2, Samuel Akin 2, Hailin Zhang 2, William Raun 2 and Daryl Brian Arnall 2
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Studying the effective nutrient management of corn has certain practical significance. But the article has many problems and needs further improvement.
1. The research area in the abstract is not clearly described, and important results should be quantified. What is the amount of nitrogen fertilizer, potassium fertilizer, and phosphorus fertilizer used? When is the fertilization time?
2. The introduction section has expected research objectives, but lacks research hypotheses.
3. What is the basis for the amount of fertilizer used in the materials and methods section?
4. The experiment uses three factors, which is a very complex process, and many results are difficult to reflect the effect of the interaction between the real factors. How did you consider this issue?
5. Why is the concentration of nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium not separately expressed by year in Figure 1?
6. Why is there no standard deviation in Figure 2? Because the experiment was repeated, the standard deviation should also be drawn on the graph. The following charts also have similar issues that need to be modified accordingly.
7. Why is significance written in the annotation of the image title when there is no significance annotation on the image? Isn't this a bit contradictory?
8. The discussion section still needs in-depth analysis, especially the mechanism that produces the results.
Language needs further improvement
Author Response
Please see the attachment
Author Response File: 
Author Response.docx
Reviewer 2 Report
I have recorded my comments on various pages of the attached PDF, which are seld-explanatry.
My major concern is about the statistical design applied to analyse the data. My comments on page 2 of M & M paragraph 2, Table 1 (page 3) and Table 3 (page 8) can be seen to address the issue.
Comments for author File: 
Comments.pdf
Quality of English language is acceptale.
Author Response
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Author Response File: Author Response.docx
