Design and Evaluation of Vacuum Central Drum Seed Metering Device
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
The article is interesting. However, it contains many editorial and writing errors. These include misplaced or missing spaces, missing capital letters at the beginning of sentences or inappropriately inserted full stops or commas. Such errors noted are highlighted in colour in the text of the article, (submitted as an appendix to this review). Due to the number of errors of this kind caught, the entire text should be re-written and checked for editorial correctness. Also, the entries of successive source items in the bibliography are not standardised in terms of form, which should absolutely be corrected according to the publisher's rules available on its website. I also have my doubts about the correctness of the English language, which is why it should be checked by a native-speaker who is experienced in this area of agricultural technology and who knows the relevant technical vocabulary.
Apart from that, I have a few more comments:
1) The numbering of the tables is wrong, table 1 appears twice;
2) There should be visible space between the tables that are placed one below the other (Tables 1 and 2, 6 and 7, 8 and 9, 10 and 11). The current way of placing them causes them to "merge" and become unreadable;
3) Similar comment to Figure 10 and Table 12;
4) A break line, for better readability, should also be used after paragraphs and before tables and figures, e.g. before and after tab. 4 and before tab. 5
5) Figures should be followed by their source;
6) Tables 1 and 2; Line 248, 249 should be merged and one table should be created with the data from both of them, this will improve the readability of the information;
7) Lines 62 - 63: Incomprehensible reference to a study of pneumatic sowing of garlic seeds, and I remind you that the article is about rice seeds. If the authors wish to introduce a broader review context of the current state of world (not only Chinese) knowledge regarding the use of pneumatic seeders for sowing other seeds, which is advisable given the scientific value of the paper, they need to do so in a way that logically connects to the rest of the text in this paragraph, this part of the article;
8) A literature review on air seeding issues in general should be conducted based on publications by authors and researchers from all over the world, not just China and India;
9) Line 205: No citation of sources for the recorded information on previous research, please complete;
10) In the "Discussion" section there should be a discussion of the arguments with the research results of other researchers dealing with this topic. As it stands, it is not a discussion of the results obtained, but a presentation of the first part of the conclusions and conclusions of the own research done;
11) References: the notation of successive source entries should be unified according to the editorial requirements. Add publications by non-Chinese authors dealing with research on pneumatic seed drills for cereals.
The authors have correctly planned and carried out experimental research on a test stand made for this purpose. They described the construction and operation of the tested pneumatic sowing unit. They analysed the results and drew conclusions. However, a paper comparing parameters for several rice varieties would be of greater utilitarian and scientific value. The data given in Table 1 indicate that the seeds of the analysed varieties do not differ in their overall dimensions, which makes it possible to assume that the process of their sowing could be carried out using the tested sowing unit.
Comments for author File: 
Comments.pdf
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.docx
Reviewer 2 Report
The presented article is focused on the assessment of the quality of work of the drum sowing system. The authors performed high-quality measurements of parameters at various operating parameters, thus obtaining a considerable amount of data and information about the operation of the device. The obtained values ​​were statistically evaluated.
I recommend adding a more detailed description of the sowing mechanisms currently used at the end and comparing these properties with the information obtained from the research within the discussion. The methodological part describes the principle of operation of the evaluated equipment and the methods used to measure and evaluate data. When presenting the results, I recommend adding more detailed descriptions of the grag axes to figure 9 and a revision of the units in the text and tables for clarity. For example r.min-1 x min-1.
I recommend supplementing the discussion by comparing the results with the results in other publications.
Otherwise, I have no comments on the article and after the recommended modifications, I recommend it for publication.
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Reviewer 3 Report
The article in question is a complete scientific work, in which the issue of creating and testing a vacuum central drum dosing device for seeds is considered. The authors wish to consider the operational reliability of this device in future works.
Author Response
It has been revised according to the opinions of editors and other reviewers,thank you very much. Further investigation and research will be carried out in the next step(about precision seeding for single seed).
