Intercropping of Echinochloa frumentacea with Leguminous Forages Improves Hay Yields, Arbuscular Mycorrhizal Fungi Diversity, and Soil Enzyme Activities in Saline–Alkali Soil
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Dear Authors,
The manuscript presented to me for review addresses, in my opinion, the important issue of counteracting the effects of soil salinization. In addition, an important issue is intercropping with legumes which brings a number of benefits to agriculture and increases crop biodiversity. As for the content of the manuscript, I have the following comments:
Line 2 - 5 In my opinion, the title is too long. I suggest in the title to put more generally what was studied in the experiment. I also think that the type of soil of the study is more important than the location (the last sentence is just a suggestion)
Line 29 The introduction, in my opinion, lacks information on the benefits of intercropping with legumes. In addition, the title mentions hay yield. So I think that there should also be information about the yield of E. frumentacea as well as its intercropping and the possibilities of using these yields.
Line 38 Suggest you state by how much and in what areas? Is this due to the mentioned irrational irrigation or "natural" factors
Line 41 citation error
Line 79 - 80 these sentences should not be in the introduction
Line 94 I believe that weather conditions during the field experiment should also be included.
Line 108 This section lacks information on the amount of seeding of the legume and how the seeding of both E. frumentacea and the legume was carried out. I would also suggest that this subsection be expanded to include information on what was preplanted on the main crop. In addition, there is no information on whether any crop fertilization and protection from weeds and pests was used? Were soybean seeds inculcated before sowing? This is an extremely important procedure when it comes to legume cultivation.
Line 165 The materials and methods mentioned total water-soluble salt (TS) lacks this in the results section. Only the correlation associated with it is given. What is the reason for this? I am also puzzled as to why no additional plan quality characteristics are given? Do they form the basis of another study or were they not analyzed?
Line 166 The title of the subsection suggests that only the hay yield of E. frumentacea was analyzed? Were legumes not included?
Line 265 - 267 What is the reason for this?
Line 273 I suggest giving reasons why the composition of AMF has a beneficial effect on yields? In addition, a possible reason for the yield improvement could also have been the legumes fixing N and making it available to the intercropped crops. As well as soil amendments caused by legumes secreting compounds and thus increasing the availability of some nutrients. Some of the soil amendments are mentioned by Autors in the next section, but I still think this should be referred to yields. I understand that the authors focus on AMF and soil enzymes, but if they also consider yield in my opinion they should also consider other possible mechanisms
Line 289 citation form error
Line 294 citation form error
Line 329 This section partly repeats information given earlier which in my opinion is incorrect. In addition, I believe that it should also include recommendations for the wider application of the results of this experiment and an outlook for future research
In addition, there are incorrect forms of citation in the manuscript such as Author (year) or in the number in the superscript. There is also a change in font o spacing in several places in the manuscript. I also suggest correcting the References section according to the template. There are many irregularities in it.
Author Response
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Author Response File: 
Author Response.docx
Reviewer 2 Report
The work presented in this paper deals with the effect of intercropping between leguminous and gramineous plants on the arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) diversity of a saline-alkali soil. This topic is very important in the context of climate global change with the growing concern about increased aridification of agricultural areas. The aridification could lead to misused practices of irrigation and turn to salinization of soils. The authors have focused the analysis of this problem on the role of the AMF diversity induced by the intercropping to counteract the adverse effect of salinization on the hay yield, which is a smart approach to the problem. The text is very clear and the study is well conducted and presents impressive effects of the intercropping.
There is just one minor aspect lacking to make this article directly suitable for publication. Among the biochemical and chemical factors which are measured in the soils, the enzymes activities are given in the Table 2, but the total water soluble salt contents are not given. And I have not found any Supplementary Informations giving these data. These water soluble salt contents are very important since, as it is shown and discussed by the authors, they are significantly correlated to all measured parameters of this study (except catalase activity). The pH in the different intercropping experiments could also be reported, even it is less important since it is not significantly correlated to any other measured parameters.
Also a very few typos in the text and an interrogation:
Line 12: remove “Tel”.
Line 105: “40 cm” not “40 and cm”.
Line 153: “phenol” or “paranitrophenol” ? Check the composition of your soil enzyme kit, very often the substrate for phosphatase activity is paranitrophenyl phosphate and the product of the reaction is paranitrophenol, not phenol.
Author Response
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Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
Dear Authors,
thank you for incorporating all the suggestions from the first review. In my opinion, the manuscript has been significantly improved and in its present substantive form can be accepted for further editorial work. However, I believe that the References section should be improved, it is still not uniform. I suggest re-checking the entire section. In addition, the revised version of the manuscript has not been prepared on the MDPI template, I suggest to follow this.
Author Response
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Author Response File: Author Response.docx
