Effects of Conservation Tillage on Agricultural Green Total Factor Productivity in Black Soil Region: Evidence from Heilongjiang Province, China

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Please specify if in the article you are referring to black soils as a general category. If so, then you must also specify the names of the soil types according to the accepted international  classification. This will be apply to the entire document.

Also, 2.1.2; 2.1.3; 2.2.1; 2.2.2; 2.2.3; 2.2.4 sections of the article provide only descriptions. You have to reformulate them so that they are suitable for material and method section.

Author Response

Comments1

Please specify if in the article you are referring to black soils as a general category. If so, then you must also specify the names of the soil types according to the accepted international  classification. This will be apply to the entire document.

Response1

We sincerely thank you for your careful review comments!

More information on "black soils" has been provided in the first paragraph of the article, Line 28 to 36. The FAO definition of "black soils" and its classification in the WRB are cited.

According to the "Global Status Of Black Soils" from FAO, the term "black soils" is widely used in countries around the world. Based on the report, other existing research, and policy documents, the term "black soils" is used in this paper.

Comments2

Also, 2.1.2; 2.1.3; 2.2.1; 2.2.2; 2.2.3; 2.2.4 sections of the article provide only descriptions. You have to reformulate them so that they are suitable for material and method section.

Response2

We agree with your comments. The existing sections 2.1.2; 2.1.3 have been revised to fit the Materials and Methods section. The original sections 2.2.1; 2.2.2; 2.2.3; 2.2.4 have been revised and made a separate section, which now reads 2. Analysis of Theoretical Mechanisms.

 

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The research topic is interesting. Overall, the manuscript is written well. However, these points need to be considered for improvement.

There are some typos and grammatical errors, please rectify them during the revision stage.

Line 19: ‘19%’ Please do not start any sentence by giving the values. I recommend rephrasing all these for better look and clarity

Line 86: ‘business income’ avoid using these terms

Overall, I recommend taking assistance from an English expert to polish the language.

Line 491: ‘26% of its soybeans’ rephrase

Lines 526-534: Add suitable citations

I recommend adding more recent studies in the discussion section in support of your results

Re-consider author's contribution statement

Comments on the Quality of English Language

A major revision is required particularly regarding the English language

Author Response

Comments1

The research topic is interesting. Overall, the manuscript is written well. However, these points need to be considered for improvement.

There are some typos and grammatical errors, please rectify them during the revision stage.

Line 19: ‘19%’ Please do not start any sentence by giving the values. I recommend rephrasing all these for better look and clarity

Line 86: ‘business income’ avoid using these terms

Overall, I recommend taking assistance from an English expert to polish the language.

Line 491: ‘26% of its soybeans’ rephrase

Response1

We sincerely thank you for your careful review comments!

Following your suggestion, we used MDPI's English editing service. Typos and grammar were systematically corrected and checked.

Comments2

Lines 526-534: Add suitable citations

I recommend adding more recent studies in the discussion section in support of your results

Response2

We agree with your comments. More content was added to the discussion section, with many of the latest research findings added and further analyzed.

Comments3

Re-consider author's contribution statement

Response1

The author's contribution statement has been verified and confirmed.

Comments4

Comments on the Quality of English Language

A major revision is required particularly regarding the English language

Response4

We agree with your comments. Following your suggestion, we used MDPI's English editing service. Significant changes have been made to the English language. Thank you again for your valuable comments!

 

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The manuscript entitled „Effects of Conservation Tillage on Agricultural Green Total Factor Productivity in Black Soil Region: Evidence from Heilongjiang Province, China” presents interesting study on preservation and utilization of black soil. The manuscript is quite well prepared however demands some improvements.

Please add more details about soil type. “Black soil” is not sufficient description of the soil type. I suggest to describe the soil type according FAO WRB classification system.

The titles of the tables should be self-explanatory. For example the titles of Table 7 and 8 is not clear enough to understand what are the values in these tables. Coefficients and p-values? What are these coefficients? Asterisks indicate probably statistical significance but it is not clearly explained. Please be more specific. Abbreviations of the variables in the Tables 7 and 8 should be explained.

Discussion is mainly based on the own results and comparison with other results is not very detailed. I suggest to extend the part where your results are compare to the other studies.

The main response variable in the study is agricultural green total factor productivity (AGTFP). Please explain what exactly means the value of AGTF. It is not clear in such units it is presented.

Author Response

Comments1

The manuscript entitled „Effects of Conservation Tillage on Agricultural Green Total Factor Productivity in Black Soil Region: Evidence from Heilongjiang Province, China” presents interesting study on preservation and utilization of black soil. The manuscript is quite well prepared however demands some improvements.

Please add more details about soil type. “Black soil” is not sufficient description of the soil type. I suggest to describe the soil type according FAO WRB classification system.

Response1

We sincerely thank you for your careful review comments!

More information on "black soils" has been provided in the first paragraph of the article, Line 28 to 36. The FAO definition of "black soils" and its classification in the WRB are cited.

According to the "Global Status Of Black Soils" from FAO, the term "black soils" is widely used in countries around the world. Based on the report, other existing research, and policy documents, the term "black soils" is used in this paper.

Comments2

The titles of the tables should be self-explanatory. For example the titles of Table 7 and 8 is not clear enough to understand what are the values in these tables. Coefficients and p-values? What are these coefficients? Asterisks indicate probably statistical significance but it is not clearly explained. Please be more specific. Abbreviations of the variables in the Tables 7 and 8 should be explained.

Response2

We agree with your comments.

The titles of Table 7 and Table 8 has been refined and additional descriptions related to the content of the table have been added in accordance with the reviewer's comments.

The significance of the coefficients is explained during the model construction process, the asterisks are explained in the NOTE and RESULTS analyses in Table 7, and the variable descriptions in Tables 7 and 8 are in the second column of Table 7.

Comments3

Discussion is mainly based on the own results and comparison with other results is not very detailed. I suggest to extend the part where your results are compare to the other studies.

Response3

We agree with your comments. The discussion section has been extensively supplemented. Expanded on the latest research and compared related research results.

Comments4

The main response variable in the study is agricultural green total factor productivity (AGTFP). Please explain what exactly means the value of AGTF. It is not clear in such units it is presented.

Response4

We agree with your comments. The paragraph from line 142 to 160 was rewritten based on your comments. The concept and meaning of AGTFP is explained. AGTFP is an efficiency value that takes values between 0 and 1 and has no units. It is described in 3.2.2. Tobit model construction as well as Table 4.

 

 

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The manuscript was improved according all my comments. In my opinon current versin of the manuscript can be published.