The Influence of Climatic Conditions and Agronomic Practices on Greenhouse Gas Emissions in a Conventional Vineyard (DOCa. Rioja, Spain)

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

In this paper, the authors report on the results of a study to measure greenhouse gas emissions from a vineyard in Spain. The methods and study design are typical for studies of this kind. These types of studies are not trivial to execute and they are expensive in terms of human work hours and equipment. Therefore, each such research effort is commendable, valuable and much respected.

However, the paper can be much improved if the presentation becomes clearer and more transparent. The value of the study will significantly increase, if the authors explore more systematically the relationship between the emission measurements and the environmental conditions and management approaches. This will convert this paper from a descriptive narration and conjectures about explanatory variables, into real scientific investigation that could be generalizable (or that could be considered representative) for vineyards, in the given climatic zone, for the given soil type and management practices.

A few suggestions:

-The paper is to be read by an international audience, therefore, please be specific about the geographic region and add a map with the locations described.

-It appears that precipitation is an important explanatory variable. No in-depth analysis of that is presented but at the very least, I suggest displaying precipitation and emissions (in a vertical arrangement) in the same plot.

-It is not clear why soil moisture is only discussed for 2019.

-The abstract needs careful editing for example: Lines 17-18: "Differences in GHG fluxes were also observed between crop rows and vineyard plot lanes", language is good to be standardized. Does crop refer to vines? Later in the paper, the words used are: alley and row. Also, it is unclear what constitutes conventional practices. The relevant flow in the text is split first in Line 13-14 and later in Line 18-19. This becomes confusing for the reader.

-In the introduction, in the literature review, I suggest omitting references to forests, as this paper is about managed agricultural soils. I suggest more thorough literature research specific to agricultural soil emissions, rather than 'everything' greenhouse gas emissions papers.

-In Line 66 anaerobic conditions are mentioned along with microbes metabolizing O2(?). I believe sentence needs more careful writing.

-Lines 74-76 repeat what was written earlier in Lines 46-47.

-In Line 109, it is mentioned that manure is covered but it is not clear how. Later in the paper, this piece of information does not seem to be repeated/verified.

-In the description of methods, what are the detection limits and what are the QA/QC procedures, in your labs?

-In reporting of the results, a summary table of the results would be a very welcome addition for the reader.

-In terms of transparency, sharing more details of methods and results in a supplement would be valuable. If such a supplement has been submitted, I was not able to see it on the website I downloaded the paper.

-In lack of statistical or deterministic modeling, presenting results along with possible explanatory variables (such as precipitation, soil moisture) on the same graph would be helpful for the audience to at least visualize the observations described. 

-I find the conclusion overstating the scope of the study, as really there is no documented recommendation about sustainable management practices. I suggest reconsidering the whole study and how its results and importance are communicated. Reworking on the writing and presentation after reflection of the whole study can significantly improve the impact of a paper.

 

The paper has only minor issues with English (such as using the correct verb tense in one instance or eliminating a word written twice)

Author Response

Estimado revisor, 

Gracias por los comentarios a nuestro manuscrito titulado "Influencia de las condiciones climáticas y prácticas agronómicas en las emisiones de gases de efecto invernadero en un viñedo convencional (DOCa. Rioja. España)". Estos comentarios son muy útiles y muy útiles para revisar y mejorar nuestro artículo. Hemos analizado detenidamente los diferentes comentarios y hemos introducido correcciones que esperamos cuenten con su aprobación.

 

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

I have two main concerns about this paper:

First the Abstract

Don't present any result in a quantitative form and doesn't present clearly the main objectives of the research work – must be improved.

 

Second material and methods

You must present a table with all the agricultural operations made during the research period (that appears in the graphics presented, but should more clear with a table).

You have to give some information about irrigation made in the vineyard, namely: dates, amounts of water used and que water quality.

You refer the plants density, but you have to refer the width of the alley and the distance between plants in the row. This is important.

You must clarify where you measure the soil temperature at 10 cm. It appears the measurements were made in the climatic station located 150-200 m from the study area. Is that true?? If so, it´s a big problem because the results for soil temperature wouldn’t be the same.

The statistical treatment must be complemented. It´s important to see if the results are normally distributed in order to perform the statistical, and you don´t mentioned this operation. I think it´s also important to make a correlation study between the variables and the results, in order to know what significantly influence the results. I think that the statistical analysis in very short for the amount of results that you have.

Results and discussion

I think that the soil classification and characterization is a matter of material and methods and no so much for results and discussion

 

Conclusions

 

Must be shorter, presented more clearly and with some quantification, without repeating what have been said in results and discussion. I think that this chapter must be rewrite

Author Response

Dear Reviewer, 

Thank you very much for the suggestions made to our article. We have followed all comments and have responded to each of the annotations in the attached document. We hope that the new version of the manuscript can thus finally be published in Agronomy.

 

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

The manuscript is significantly improved. One point that still makes me uncomfortable is the interpretation of the measurement results. For example in the conclusion the authors write "In particular, temperature and precipitation volume appear as crucial factors contributing to CO₂ emissions, with correlation coefficients (rs) of 0.20 and 0.16 for temperature, and 0.44 and 0.30 for precipitation volume ... supporting this claim." The linear correlations themselves do not much support the claim. If anything, they are rather low. I suggest the authors go over one more careful editing effort to remove interpretations that are poorly supported by the evidence they present. This study reports on experimental results. Deeper interpretations in my opinion require deeper analysis, which does not have to be in the scope of this paper, as long as the results are also not over-interpreted, beyond the presented evidence.

Use of English is good.

Reviewer 2 Report

Don´t have any additional comment