Germplasm Screening of Green Manure Rapeseed through the Effects of Short-Term Decomposition on Soil Nutrients and Microorganisms

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Detailed annotated comments could be found on the manuscript. In general, the literature review lacks a synthesis of previous related studies which present the current knowledge status quo. This should have been followed by informing the reader the gap in knowledge (problem statement) that your study will be addressing followed by a hypothesis. The discussion section requires extensive work. Please address the comments in the attached annotated manuscript. The conclusion requires a complete overhaul.

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Thank you for the reviewer's positive comments. It means a lot to us.

We have revised some parts of the manuscript. Please revise it again

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

 

• The field of research approached in the paper - Effects of Decomposition with Different Green Manure Rapeseed on Soil Nutrients and Microorganisms - is relatively new, but of great importance both economically and with impact on the environment.
• The content is in accord with title.
• The Abstract is OK.
• The key words permit found article in the current registers or indexes.
• Effects for decomposition of green manure rapeseed analysed refers to the change in soil both in the concentration of the main nutrients - nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium - and the concentration of the main microorganisms - Proteobacteria, Actinomycetes, Bacteroidetes, Rokubacteria and
• Experimental research is undertaken judiciously.
• The LSD (Least Significant Difference) statistical method is suitable for processing experimental data.
• Modern and high-performance SPSS 24.0 software (IBM, Inc., Armonk, NY, USA) was used for correlation and principal component analysis.
• Modern and high-performance Origin 2019 software (OriginLab, Northampton, MA, USA) was used for concise and suggestive graphical representations.
• The size of the article is appropriate to the contents.
• The figures have a good quality.
• The paper has the text presented and arranged clearly and concisely.

Author Response

Thank you for the  positive comments. It means a lot to us. We have revised some parts of the manuscript. Please revise it again.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 3 Report

Reviewed manuscript provide information about effect of decomposition with different green manure rapeseed on soil nutrients and microorganisms. In my opinion topic of presented manuscript is very important and interesting. However, the manuscript is very difficult to read and experiment is describe to superficially so is not easy to understand idea of conducted study.

Section 1 Introduction – please provide aim of presented study,

Section 2 Materials and methods

• Did the authors analysis decomposition of dry materials in mesh bags only one month period? Please provide more information about time of experiment and please justify why only a one month period was utilized,
• Please explain why for decomposition dry material was used? How exactly was the material prepared (e.g. drying temperature),
• How was the meteorological conditions exactly during study experiment?
• Why only one series of experiment was conducted? It is not possible to make inferences based only on one series of experiment.
• How did the authors take soil samples at what distance from the experimental materials? I think this is very important information
• How was determine decomposition rate – please provide more information. Why the authors didn’t put information about C/N ratio?
• Please provide information on what soil the experiments were located and what was the area of the experiment,
• Table 1 please put the statistical comparison (SE or SD and significance differences),
• Please provide more information about methodology to determination of soil and plant nutrients.

In Table 2 please put the units; table is not clear, please put the symbols (a,b,c) explanations, please put the results as mean ±SE or SD!

In all, the methodology of conducted experiment is not clear and content very important mistakes and gapes.  

Author Response

Thank you for the reviewer's positive comments. It means a lot to us.

We have revised some parts of the manuscript. Please revise it again.

Author Response File: Author Response.doc

Round 2

Reviewer 3 Report

The manuscript was significantly improved but needs to correct: 

Table 1 
-    please round off the values to two decimal places
-    please provide information - is this SE or SD. It is not clear from the information provided whether it is SE or SD.
-    Please provide information: The values with different superscript letters in a column are significantly different (p<0.05).
Table 2
-    please round off the values to two decimal places, 
-    please provide information - is this SE or SD. It is not clear from the information provided whether it is SE or SD.
The same with Table 3 
Section 2.3 Test Method
- flame photometry – please put information what kind of aparatus was used 
- please put references to all of analytical methods used in experiment,
- anti colorimetry? Colorimetry method !
- molibdenium antimony? Not molibdenium amonium?  please put information about  soultion concentration 

Section 2.4 Data analysis 
 -Better: Decomposition rate was calculated as follows: 
Decomposition rate = (M0 – M30) / M0×100
  - decomposition rate – no unit

- Better: Plant nutrient relase rate was calculated as follows....

-The scientific name should be ride down by italic,

-In whole manusript, units should be modyfied acording to SI system

 

Author Response

Thank you again for taking the time to review this paper a second time. According to comment, related content have been improved. 

However, some indicators in Table 3 are not suitable to retain two decimal places, such as Simpson index. We do think it is more suitable to retain four decimal places, so the whole table retains four decimal places.

The detection methods of nutrient content in plants and soil have  been revised and relevant references have been added.

For specific modifications, see the manuscript , in blue font.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx