Soil-Improving Cropping Systems for Sustainable and Profitable Farming in Europe

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

General comment:

The paper reflects an extremely poor research design as as such the paper cannot correct all the mistakes made in the research from the beginning. This results in a poor significance of the findings. While the socio cultural part is ok, the SICS analysed are meaningless and the poor results could have been foreseen with a more careful literature review in the design phase of the research. In the introduction the term conservation agriculture is mentioned, but unfortunately more from an anecdotal point of view without more specific reference to its meaning. The research on CA, also in Europe, has shown that SICS only have significant impact on sustainability and productivity if combined. To achieve meaningful improvements a minimum set of practices is required fue to synergetic effects, which is the core of the CA definition. Other practices complement and optimize. Studying literature, for example from ECAF, Kassam et al. and others on Conservation Agricluture in Europe research sites could have been selected, where CA is already applied, and those could have been analysed for impact, problems and optimization potential, rather than poking blindly in the dark with isolated practices. To improve the meaningfulness of the paper, such references should be studied and included and the results of the research validated against that literature.

Comments by line:

62: wording like “more sustainable agricultural practices” should be avoided and changed. Firstly, no single practice can be called sustainable, secondly, so far about 85% of the crop farming worldwide is not even close to being in any way sustainable. Therefore, the term “more” in the context of sustainable does not make sense. We could be happy to have sustainable cropping systems. Pls. change.

69: better “achieving” instead of “improving”

90: the first invisible step of soil degradation is usually the loss of soil-biodiversity and hence of soil health; the focus on organic matter and nutrients reflects the outdated concept of soil “fertility”. Pls. amend.

111: see above; change term “more sustainable farming systems”; also organic farming is not a sustainable farming system, but just a system which avoids the use of synthetic inputs to reduce the health risk for consumers and environment. Pls. adjust formulation.

119: change “more sustainable” to “less unsustainable”

117: if the term conservation agriculture refers to the specific concept as defined by FAO it should be spelled with capital letters; the statement needs revision: there are many different literature references on the yield effect of CA including in Europe, in average the results are neutral or even positive; Pittlekow is a particular questionable reference as it refers to a metanalysis which includes different cropping systems lumped together under the term conservation agriculture. This reference has been questioned in other papers, including in an article published in Nature and therefore it should be replaced by a more serious reference.

184: reduced soil degradation is not really a positive impact; as soil is not a renewable resource, at least in the human lifetime, any degradation cannot be tolerated, not even a reduced one.

185: the only reference to inputs for reducing soil degradation needs more reflection as it refers to the outdated concept of soil fertility, not even soil quality and by now means soil health or environmental functions which are mentioned in the next sentence, but which are likewise direct impacts. Pls. reformulate.

328: see above, change “more sustainable” to “less unsustainable”

465: this statement contradicts established research findings: inversion tillage is not a means to control compaction and to the contrary creates compaction at the plough pan; worse even when inversion is done with disk tools which compact by construction. Pls. correct the statement or delete the specific reference to noninversion tillage.

477: most of these findings are questionable or have no real informative character; in particular the reference of herbicides in context of no-till suggests that tillage systems would not use herbicides. In addition, the practices are analysed in isolation and without explaining the other complementary practices in the cropping systems which would lead to the findings. For example, as single isolated practice no-tillage has been found by other authors (Anderson) as reducing weed pressure particularly from seed propagated annual weeds, while tillage increases weed pressure from those weeds. Pls. check all statements and word them in a more careful way, particularly in view of the low statistical significance mentioned earlier.

482: delete “surprisingly” – the pure addition of organic matter does not increase SOC levels unless it is combined with other practices. This is no surprise but established knowledge.

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

I've provided numerous small edits and comments on the PDF document. One main issue is the lack of definition around terms used in the manuscript. Given the debate around the terms soil health and soil quality (acknowledged by the authors), the interchangeable use of the terms in the paper is problematic and requires their attention. a decision needs to be made and one term should be used consistently throughout. 

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

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Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

From your response I take that my review comments were not fully understood. Sustainability is not really a subject of "top-down" or "bottom-up" opinions, it is a pretty clear concept in natural science. If this particular paper cannot be improved anymore, future research should reflect more modern state of the art knowledge. Yet, although the SoilCare project obviously carried sustainable in the title, the paper should not use that term since the contents is far from leading to sustainable systems; you might replace the term with "more ecologically friendly". Again: less unsustainable is not synonym with more sustainable. Sustainable indicates a distinct point, from which on the system is sustainable - more is not possible. As a dead person cannot be more dead by being killed multiple times.

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

The authors improved the quality of the paper by accepting most of the suggestions recommended by me. Now I can recommend the paper for publication as it is.

Author Response

Thanks for your comments & for indicating that the paper is now ready for publication.