Organic Material Addition Optimizes Soil Structure by Enhancing Copiotrophic Bacterial Abundances of Nitrogen Cycling Microorganisms in Northeast China

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Journal: Agronomy (ISSN 2073-4395)

Manuscript ID: agronomy-2525963

Type: Article

Title: Organic fertilizer and maize straw addition optimized soil structure by enhancing copiotrophic bacterial abundances of nitrifying and denitrifying microorganism communities in northeast China

Authors: Yang Yue , Wei Xiang Gong , Zhao Yong Zheng , Ping Tian , Ying Jiang , Yu Hong Zhang , Hua Qi *

Section: Farming Sustainability 

The present topic is investigated in the literature, and there is a very few of reference published. However, this paper gives significant contribution to the current knowledge in related field. The data are sound and it deserves to be published. 

I have very favorable comments for current research and manuscript quality, well-written and presented. It deserves to be published upon addressing following minute observations: 

??Abbreviations must be described completely at first mention with brackets.  

?? Keywords should not be the same as mentioned in the title or abstract. 

?? Kindly don’t start a sentence with an abbreviation. 

?? Collected data is sound one. It deserves to be published after minute improvements.  

???? Very Minute Scientific Discussion. It can be improved viz I would have expected slightly greater discussion of how exactly plants growth was affected, more detail on the mechanisms and logical reasoning is required.

???? For discussion section, not much detailed discussion is going on. This is just restating the observations and results. There is much more scope here for discussing the implications of what these results mean. 

?? Use www.turnitin.com to find and eliminate unnecessary self-repetition and any copied text. 

?? A few very old references have been used. These must be updated with recent research findings or removed.

?? Proper formatting is questionable. It must be according to MDPI Agronomy Journal. References formatting are inconsistent. A few DOI missing.

?? Verify each reference from original source and cross check references in the text and reference section.

Moderate editing of English language required

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

I went through the manuscript entitled "Organic fertilizer and maize straw addition optimized soil structure by enhancing copiotrophic bacterial abundances of nitrifying and denitrifying microorganism communities in northeast China". I am of the opinion that this manuscript needs some major revisions before publication. Has this experiment been done in the field for only one year or has it been repeated in the following year? Explain about the growth stages of the plant, the length of the growth period, the exact date of planting and harvesting. Is only the vegetative growth of the plant considered or until the end of reproductive growth? The variety of the plant should be mentioned. Why was the soil analysis done only to a depth of 20 cm? How deep was the range of root development? The yield of the plant was not mentioned. Explain the length of the growth period, irrigation and other care. The novelty of the topic should be explained in the introduction section. Are micro-elements determined before planting? What was the electrical conductivity of the soil?

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 3 Report

Dear Authors,

congratulations on the well-done work. The topic that you presented is very interesting and of increasing importance. Despite this, there are still some issues that in my opinion can improve the quality of your article. Please, find them below.

Title

In my opinion it is too long and too specific. You don’t have to describe all details you revealed during the study in it. Try to make it as short as it can and as informative as it should be.

Abstract

The Abstract is well written - short and informative, but still need some minor improvements.

Lines 27-28 – please give full names of AOA and AOB when you mention them for the first time (all parts of the article (abstract, introduction, m&m, results, discussion) should stand alone and at the beginning of each of them you should introduce all acronyms that have been  used).

Please highlight in the Abstract the knowledge gap that you covered in the presented research.

Introduction

The reader can find most of the necessary issues that form a really good background for the presented research work, but still this part of the manuscript needs to be improve. The case here it’s not well organised. The second, and the third paragraphs seem to be „two different stories”. Please try to skip between them more smoothly”.

Below there are some minor deficiencies that should be improved.

Line 42 – please rearrange sentence started with „as all we know” – is it really so obvious – please add some references.

Line 54 – can Energy be really generated? Please rearrange this sentence.

Line 60 – „Nitrite reductase”, „Nitrous oxide redyctase” – is it necessary to start those with a capital letter?

Line 72 – list more of those studies that you meant here.

Materials and Methods

This chapter is well written but there are some issues that need to be improved.

Give the name of organic fertilizer that you used.

Line 145 – at the end of the line add „as follows” as you did in line 138.

Why did you numbered formulas you used?

When you present the software, apparatus, reagents, etc. you used please give the name and then in brackets – manufacturer, city, and country. Probably you can use some other scheme also, but it should be uniform within the whole text.

Results

The description of the results is clear and appropriate. Some concerns have been raised due to data presentation in figure 2. Please try to follow layout you used in figure 1, where graphs are divided, and OY axis always starts with „0”.

Lines 225,226 - please give full names of AOA and AOB when you mention them for the first time in the Results.

Line 263 – does Table S1 mean supplementary material? Make it more clear.

Open question?

Why haven’t you planned a treatment with a regular fertilized  plots to compare (without organic products/amendements)? In my opinion this could improve your findings and give far more broader view on the presented issue.

Discussion

This chapter appears to be thorough and well-written. Your discussion is streamlined and run with a mechanistic approach what I really appreciate.

Conclusions

Please underline the importance and clearly address the knowledge gap that you have covered with the research that you presented. Your results are very interesting, and I am sure that you have some future prospects that have arised. Present them at the end.

Regards,

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

Congratulations