The Study of the Impact of Complex Foliar Fertilization on the Yield and Quality of Sunflower Seeds (Helianhtus annuus L.) by Principal Component Analysis

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Dear Authors,

Congratulation for the good work. Some suggestions:

1. According to the journal instrustions the Results and Discussion should be in different sections.

2. I think that the sections 2.1 and 2.2 must be added in the Results section.

3. The paragraph from line 239 to 244 should be part of the soil analysis

4. Check one more time the style of the manuscript according to the journal instrustions

Author Response

Dear Reviewer

Thank you for your valuable comments. They helped us to create a higher quality article corresponding to the journal's requirements.

On time, we hope that the requested revisions have been achieved in the new form.

1. We would prefer to keep this form, which is more convenient for us in discussing the results. The requirements of the journal allow the merging of the two sections: Results and Discussions.
2. The data presented in subsections 2.1 and 2.2 are taken from the literature and we cannot include them in the Results paragraph. And the other reviewers accepted this.
3. The lines indicated by you have been moved to the sub-paragraph presenting the soil analyses.
4. We revised more carefully, according to the journal's instructions, and we hope to have produced a better version of the article.

 

 

Thank you for your valuable comments and recommendations with the hope that we have made the necessary changes.

 

Kind regards

 

Authors

Reviewer 2 Report

The manuscript entitled " The study of the impact of complex foliar fertilization on the yield and quality of sunflower seeds (Helianhtus annuus L) by principal component analysis” studied the foliar fertilizations (FF) impact on yield and quality of sunflower seeds. The subject is very interesting, and the authors did a lot of work, and the methodology used is adequate for the objectives of the study. The results are of interest and support the conclusions. That being said, the manuscript has the potential to be accepted in “Agronomy” after major revision.

 

Major Comments

In the abstract section

The authors should follow this arrangement (purpose – methods – results – conclusions).

The presentation of the key findings of experimental results should be improved and data regarding the mainly measured indicators should be presented.

Please focus on the novelty of this work.

keywords: keywords are already stated in the title. Please consider changing the keywords list and use synonyms.

In the Introduction section

The introduction part needs major enhancement. It is too long and the literature is quite repetitive in certain parts of the introduction. Thus, literature should be concentrated on explaining how this study should add any significant improvement to the common knowledge.

The authors are recommended to add more details on the significance of the study and provide a hypothesis of the present study at the end of the introduction to give the reader more information regarding the purpose and the mechanistic used to achieve this goal, then may refer some lack in the previous study regarding some aspects.

Minor comments

Lines 49-52: Move this paragraph to the end of the introduction section.

Line 76: Delete “Error! Reference source not found” throughout the manuscript.

Line 238: Figure not Figura

Line 350: Results and Discussion

Line 351 and 354: Add references.

Line 364: Italicize P throughout the manuscript

Kind Regards.

Minor editing of English language required

Author Response

Dear Reviewer

Thank you for your valuable comments. They helped us to create a higher quality article corresponding to the journal's requirements.

On time, we hope that the requested revisions have been achieved in the new form.

Abstract

We have reformulated the ideas from the abstract in the sense indicated by you. We hope we have managed to achieve this.

Keywords

We have chosen other keywords that are not found in the title but that reflect the idea of ​​the article

Introduction

Keeping the initial information, We especially improved the last part, which better represents the purpose of the work

Minor comments

We have fixed all the deficiencies you noticed.

 

Thank you for your valuable comments and recommendations with the hope that we have made the necessary changes.

 

Kind regards

 

Authors

 

Reviewer 3 Report

The manuscript entitled “The study of the impact of complex foliar fertilization on the yield and quality of sunflower seeds (Helianhtus annuus L) by principal component analysis” depicted the effects of foliar application of fertilizer on yield of quality of sunflower seeds through a three-year field experiment. The work is interesting but the flaw is obvious.

 

The background of the study should be briefly mentioned at the beginning of the abstract.

 

The full names of the abbreviations of B, S, and Me are missing in the abstract.

 

Line 25: What do you mean two FF?

 

Most of length of the abstract is describing the meaning of PCA and the treatment. The results of the study which is how FF affected the yield and quality of sunflower seeds are missing.

 

The longitude, latitude, and altitude of experiment site should be mentioned.

 

The manufacture of two foliar fertilizations and the chemical component should be provided.

 

The treatment description is very confusing.

 

Line 280: What do you mean R3-V4? The full name of the abbreviation is missing.

 

Line 363: “*, **, or *** indicate statistically significant differences between sample means and Mt based on t-test” So why there are *** in Mt?

 

The writing, format, and other details of this manuscript are poor.

 

Author Response

Dear Reviewer

Thank you for your valuable comments. They helped us to create a higher quality article corresponding to the journal's requirements.

On time, we hope that the requested revisions have been achieved in the new form.

We have fixed all the deficiencies you noticed.

We have exemplified in the Abstract the meanings for the abbreviations used.

We have restructured the Abstract in order to better present the basic ideas of the article.

We entered data related to the longitude, latitude and altitude of the experimental field;

We have improved the presentation of the performed treatments as well as the stages in which they were applied. To describe the vegetation phases in which the foliar treatments were applied, we used the well-known BBCH scale.

 

We have also corrected the statistical interpretation of the tables.

Overall, we hope that we have managed to solve the problems pointed out by you in the idea of ​​improving the article.

Thank you for your valuable comments and recommendations with the hope that we have made the necessary changes.

 

Kind regards

 

Authors

 

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

The authors addressed all my comments, many thanks for their contribution

Minor editing of English language required

Reviewer 3 Report

It can be seen that the authors revised the manuscript according to my comments last time.