Influence of Shaped Hole and Seed Disturbance on the Precision of Bunch Planting with the Double-Hole Rice Vacuum Seed Meter

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The article is interesting and the analyses have been carried out correctly and with sufficient accuracy. I have the following comments on the conduct of the field tests and on the text:

Titles of consecutive subsections must not end a page on their own (without at least 1 line of text). In such cases (e.g. 1;. 2.2), they must be moved to the next page of the article.

I propose to add in section 2.2 the indicator "weight of one thousand seeds", in order to describe in more detail the rice variety chosen for the research because of its properties affecting the process under study.

Please expand the bibliography to include a review of recent international sources on the issues discussed.

Care should be taken to ensure that single letters are not left at the ends of lines, numerical values without units, or the notation of units is not split between two lines of text. Some such errors are highlighted in the text.

In Figure 3, section lines should be drawn on the drawings in the top row indicating the dimensioning locations of the drawings in the bottom row.

 Line 165 please explain the acronym QFI

 Figure 9, Figure 10 drawings as a whole should be placed on one page .

 Table 1 please add SD value

 Line 395 no space

 Figure 15 The values on the scales are not very readable, please increase the font.

 Lines 124-126 Please provide international sources as well.

 Lines 430-431 Please refer to source mattes, also international.

 Please update the bibliography when new source material is added.

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Manuscript evaluation

In the present manuscript the authors describe a study investigating the effect of shaped holes and seed disturbance structure on the precision of rice bunch planting using a double-hole vacuum seed meter to improve the precision of bunch planting.

General concept comments

The work is interesting and the results are relevant to improving rice planting. The justifications and theoretical foundation are well established and the main topics have been covered. The objectives were clearly stated and relevant references were used for justification, with a clear gap covered by the authors.

The methodology could be better organized containing details of all the methods. In this sense, there would be no details of the methods or formulas in the subsequent description of the results. The authors describe this in topics describing the method and then results. Furthermore, for multiple regression the authors describe that they used software with assumptions of normality, independence and homoscedasticity. Have these assumptions been verified? This should be described and should be specified in the results.

Instead of individual ANOVA, the authors could use a factorial scheme since the effect of two factors are being considered: speed and vacuum pressure at different levels, this would make it possible to verify the effect of the interaction of the factors, although the unfolding of pressure within the speeds has already been considered.

The results focused on the main findings in accordance with the desired objectives. Figures and Tables are in adequate quantities and were used to describe the main results and assist in exposition and interpretation by the reader. I believe that some information can be added to some figures to make the interpretation clearer to the reader and some titles should be rewritten so that they are self-explanatory.

In general, the discussion was well conducted and the conclusions were based on the main findings in which the authors were faithful to the objectives outlined.

Specific Comments

I highlight below some recommendations.

1)     1) (Lines 160 to 162) The information of 20 rpm, 40 rpm and 60 rpm is being repeated.

2)     2) In relation to multiple regression, were the assumptions tested? What were the results? The validity of the F test depends on these assumptions being true. It is necessary to comment on this in the results.

3)     In Figures 4, 5, 6, 9, 10 and 11 I believe it is necessary to put lowercase letters indicating the test results for all columns, as there seem to be significant differences for other levels that have not been commented and this should be clear to a clearer interpretation for the reader.

4)     (Pages 190 and 191)"The multiple of each shaped hole tended to increase with increasing vacuum at 190 speeds of 20 rpm, 40 rpm, and 60 rpm (see Figure 5)". The figure does not appear to show this behavior.

5)     (Line 220) The sentence “Figure 9 shows the seed-filling situation of different shaped holes at a rotational speed of 40 rpm and a vacuum pressure of 2.8 kPa” is out of place and has no bearing on the rest of the paragraph.

6)     (Lines 229 and 230) “... and the miss index of hole B is also lower” Figure 6 does not show this pattern. In fact, miss index of hole C was lower at all pressures for 20 rpm and 40 rpm and at 60 kpa C was lower for 1.2, 1.6 and 2.

7)     Figure 6 was not cited in the text and its results were not commented on.

8)     (lines 272 to 274) I didn’t understand the sentence: “SDS IV, SDS V, and SDS VI had QFI than the other SDS, primarily because these three SDS had seed orientation strips and higher multiple index at high speeds.” What did they have? highest QFI? Be clearer.

9)     (Line 292) The correct one is 2.8 kPa to 3.6 kPa.

10) (Lines 292 to 294) - why was level 2.4 highlighted if this happens for all vacuum levels?

11) (line 235) SDS VI is repeating, I believe the correct one is SDS V.

12) The titles of Figures: 3, 8, 12, and 13 are very summarized. Titles must be self-explanatory. The same can be said for the title of Table 1.

13) Still in relation to linear regression. The R2 was relatively low, especially for Miss. In this sense, the model does not seem to be explaining the data very well. The authors only present the R2 values without comments. I believe it is necessary to comment on these values and draw readers' attention to this limitation.

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

1. Line 113 - Are you sure that a Hall sensor was used? What type and manufacturer of sensor?

2. Line 113 - How many seeds will be sown in 1-2 rotations of the disk? Perhaps greater accuracy could be achieved by increasing the number of pulses per revolution of the disk? What is the seeding rate for rice (plants or hills per meter)?

3. Line 114 - What type and manufacturer of the air pressure sensor?

4. Line 158 - The specified range of speeds raises doubts. For example, at a disk rotation frequency of 20 and a spacing of 0.1 m between hills, the minimum planter speed will be 0.4 m/s, whereas at 60 rpm and a spacing of 0.2 m between hills, the planter speed will already be 2.4 m/s. Please clarify.

5. Line 149 - Explain the advantages and disadvantages of forming holes above and below the surface of the metering disk. Does forming additional edges lead to damage to rice seeds?

6. Line 219 - What criteria were used to select the positioning of the profiled holes relative to the normal of the metering disk?

7. Lines 383-384 - Verify the correctness of the index notation.

8. Why are units separated by a "/" symbol on the graphs?

9. Were impacts and vibrations transmitted to the seeding apparatus during the movement of the seeder simulated? As they often cause seeding errors.

10. Line 452 - It is unclear from the conclusion whether the proposed profiled holes bring any benefit or whether everything can be compensated for simply by adjusting the vacuum level.

Author Response

Please see the attachment

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

I consider that the authors satisfactorily met most of my recommendations. But for the text to be ready to be approved, I have two more observations, described below.

- As for question 3, I understand. Your explanation was good and I think the sentence you wrote in response to me: “Data not labeled with a lowercase letter in Figures 4, 5, 6, 9, 10, and 11 is because they do not satisfy normality or the homogeneity of variance. Although some of the data appeared to be significantly different, they did not meet the conditions for one-way ANOVA” should appear in the text of the manuscript to make this clear to the reader.

- Regarding comment number 7. Note that the numbering of the Figures has been changed. In the original manuscript Miss was presented in Figure 6, but in this corrected version Miss is represented in Figure 5. Also note that in the paragraph above Figure 5 (line 202) results on multiple indexes are described, but Figure 5 describes Miss. Change the numbering of the Figures to correct this error.

Author Response

We sincerely thank you for your valuable feedback that we have used to improve the quality of our manuscript.

The following is a point-to-point response to the reviewer’s comments.

Response to the comments of Reviewer #2

Comment No.1: As for question 3, I understand. Your explanation was good and I think the sentence you wrote in response to me: “Data not labeled with a lowercase letter in Figures 4, 5, 6, 9, 10, and 11 is because they do not satisfy normality or the homogeneity of variance. Although some of the data appeared to be significantly different, they did not meet the conditions for one-way ANOVA” should appear in the text of the manuscript to make this clear to the reader.

Response:  We appreciate your suggestion. The sentence we wrote in response was added in lines 158 to 161.

Comment No.2: Regarding comment number 7. Note that the numbering of the Figures has been changed. In the original manuscript, Miss was presented in Figure 6, but in this corrected version Miss is represented in Figure 5. Also note that in the paragraph above Figure 5 (line 202) results on multiple indexes are described, but Figure 5 describes Miss. Change the numbering of the Figures to correct this error.

Response:  Thank you for your suggestion. The numbering of the pictures has been changed.