Impact of Cultivation Practices and Varieties on Productivity, Profitability, and Nutrient Uptake of Rice (Oryza sativa L.) and Wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) Cropping System in India

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Introduction:

L37: What is this unit 17.6 q/ha. Better to give it as t/ha

Methodology

L128-129: In this experiment, Cultivation practices are the main plot factor. There are 4 cultivation practices; reduced tillage, zero tillage, conventional tillage and natural farming. Authors should explain these practices bit in details to make the treatment structure clear to the readership. For example, what is reduced tillage? How did it practice? What is natural farming? How did it practice? Additional explanation should be given about the 4 cultivation practices in the methodology. 

L154-156; L160: I see “kg per hectare” is abbreviated as “kg ha-¹” in several places in the text. Don’t abbreviate the same several times. Once you abbreviate a term in the first appearance in the text, you can use abbreviated form throughout the text.  I also see this for N, P, K (Lines 139-142).   

L169: What is INR?

Results and Discussion

Results and Discussion part needs to be significantly reduced to avoid receptions of the statements. I believe that the length of the Result and Discussion section can be reduced. 

Table 1 and 2: These tables are bit confusing to me. Yield is expressed for different cultivation practices and varieties separately. How did authors calculate grain yield under different cultivation practices. For example, in 2020, grain yield under Reduced Tillage is 30.13. Is this the average value of three rice cultivars grown under Reduced Tillage? This comment applies to all other tables as well.

In addition, Tables and Figures should be self-explanatory/ stand-alone without the support from the text. To make it self-explanatory, Units of the table column (grain yield, straw yield, and biological yield should be given). Is it also possible to include standard errors of the means in the Tables?

L220: “in turn resulted in greater photosynthetic activity and higher straw yield” how can authors state this without measuring the photosynthesis in this study. If this is to relate to the results of this study, at least need to support by relevant literatures. Is there any evidence to support that the higher tillering capacity of wheat/other cereal crops help to effectively use the available sunlight and nutrients, which in turn resulted in greater photosynthetic activity and higher straw yield. It is advised to look in to this and revise this part accordingly. Your statements must be supported by your results or relevant literature.   

L246-255: This is a repletion of the content given in L189-198. What is the reason for repeating the same content in two places in the text? I also noted that the in both these places authors have mentioned that “Similar results have been reported in previous studies”. What kind of similarity persist. Are crops used for the experiment done in the past also similar or different? In that case, better to give a short explanation about how results become similar with previous studies rather saying “Similar results have been reported in previous studies”. I have noted this statement in several places in the Results and Discussion. This is something authors need to address in the discussion.

I see several receptions of same sentence here and there in the result and discussion part. For example, L464-466 “The total nitrogen uptake by a crop is the sum of nutrient uptake by grains and straw” L444-445 “discussed earlier, the total nutrient uptake by the crop is the sum total of nutrient uptake by grains and straw” L426-428 “discussed earlier, the total nutrient uptake by the crop is the sum total of nutrient uptake by grains and straw”. Please avoid these repetitions.

Figure 1 and 2 are not cited in the text. If you have Figures, they must be cited in the relevant places in the text.

Authors have indicated the differences of nutrient uptake under different cultivation practices. Better to elaborate the possible reasons/causes of these differences. Probably while supporting with relevant literature. That aspect is missing in the section. 

Conclusions:

L514: Conclusion can be bit more detailed to summarize the key findings of the study. Better highlighting key results of nutrient uptake as well in the conclusion.

Author Response

The manuscript entitled as Impact of Cultivation Practices and Varieties on Productivity, Profitability and Nutrient Uptake of Rice (Oryza sativa L.) and Wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) Cropping System in India has enough novelty and data which should be publish in Agriculture journal.

Reviewer 1:

Comment 1: What is this unit 17.6 q/ha. Better to give it as t/ha

Response: 17.6 q/ha is quintal per hectare. I have converted the units into t/ha as suggested by the reviewer.

Comment 2: L128-129: In this experiment, Cultivation practices are the main plot factor. There are 4 cultivation practices; reduced tillage, zero tillage, conventional tillage and natural farming. Authors should explain these practices bit in details to make the treatment structure clear to the readership. For example, what is reduced tillage? How did it practice? What is natural farming? How did it practice? Additional explanation should be given about the 4 cultivation practices in the methodology. 

Response: In conventional tillage the plots were subjected to both primary and secondary tillage to get the field to optimum tilth before sowing while on zero tillage the non-selective herbicide was used to kill the weeds after the harvest of previous crop and crops were sown without any tillage using zero till precision seed drill. In the reduced tillage treatments only the primary tillage was conducted and about 30 % of the residue of the previous crop was incorporated into the soil before sowing. Natural farming is a new concept which is becoming popular amongst the farming community of the state as well as at the national level where there is little use of external farm inputs including fertilizers, herbicides and other plant protection chemicals and only those inputs which are produced by the farmers at their farm are used. This method of cultivation involves the use of products including ghanjeevamrit, beejamrit and jeevamrit at periodic interval besides using mulch to conserve moisture and control weeds, the basic premise of using these specific products being to enhance the microbial activity in the soil.

Comment 3: L154-156; L160: I see “kg per hectare” is abbreviated as “kg ha-¹” in several places in the text. Don’t abbreviate the same several times. Once you abbreviate a term in the first appearance in the text, you can use abbreviated form throughout the text.  I also see this for N, P, K (Lines 139-142).  

Response: Thank you for the valuable comment. We revised the MS file and changed the abbreviation as per suggestions.

Comment 4: L169: What is INR?  

Response: INR is Indian rupee

Comment 5: Results and Discussion part needs to be significantly reduced to avoid receptions of the statements. I believe that the length of the Result and Discussion section can be reduced. 

Response: Thank you for the valuable comment. We revised the MS file and the units of grain yield, straw yield and biological yield is given and the standard errors of the means is already included in MS file.

Comment 8: L220: “in turn resulted in greater photosynthetic activity and higher straw yield” how can authors state this without measuring the photosynthesis in this study. If this is to relate to the results of this study, at least need to support by relevant literatures. Is there any evidence to support that the higher tillering capacity of wheat/other cereal crops help to effectively use the available sunlight and nutrients, which in turn resulted in greater photosynthetic activity and higher straw yield. It is advised to look in to this and revise this part accordingly. Your statements must be supported by your results or relevant literature.   

Response: The higher straw yield in HPW 368 was due to higher number of tillers produced in this variety (data not given here) which resulted in higher leaf area index (LAI), particularly during the initial stages of crop growth. The higher LAI enables this variety to effectively use the available sunlight leading to higher photosynthetic activity and consequently higher straw yield. Similar results showing higher leaf area of wheat as a result of higher tillering and consequently higher dry matter production has also been reported by Rahman et al. (2014)[42].

Comment 9: L246-255: This is a repletion of the content given in L189-198. What is the reason for repeating the same content in two places in the text? I also noted that the in both these places authors have mentioned that “Similar results have been reported in previous studies”. What kind of similarity persist. Are crops used for the experiment done in the past also similar or different? In that case, better to give a short explanation about how results become similar with previous studies rather saying “Similar results have been reported in previous studies”. I have noted this statement in several places in the Results and Discussion. This is something authors need to address in the discussion.

Response: Thanks. We revised the MS file and made the changes as per the suggestions given by reviewer.

Comment 10: I see several receptions of same sentence here and there in the result and discussion part. For example, L464-466 “The total nitrogen uptake by a crop is the sum of nutrient uptake by grains and straw” L444-445 “discussed earlier, the total nutrient uptake by the crop is the sum total of nutrient uptake by grains and straw” L426-428 “discussed earlier, the total nutrient uptake by the crop is the sum total of nutrient uptake by grains and straw”. Please avoid these repetitions.

Response: We revised the MS file and changed the lines as per suggestions to avoid repetition.

Comment 11: Figure 1 and 2 are not cited in the text. If you have Figures, they must be cited in the relevant places in the text.

Response:  We revised the MS file and figure 1 and figure 2 are cited in the text.

Comment 12: Authors have indicated the differences of nutrient uptake under different cultivation practices. Better to elaborate the possible reasons/causes of these differences. Probably while supporting with relevant literature. That aspect is missing in the section. 

Response: We defined the results with possible reasons and relevant literature.

Comment 13: L514: Conclusion can be bit more detailed to summarize the key findings of the study. Better highlighting key results of nutrient uptake as well in the conclusion.

Response: Changes were made in the conclusion as per the suggestions. Adoption of conventional tillage in wheat and rice in rice-wheat cropping system resulted in significantly higher productivity and profitability of both the crops in the system while natural farming failed to give satisfactory results in both the crops. Similarly the conventional tillage resulted in higher content of all the primary nutrients in grain and straw of both wheat and rice thereby resulting in higher uptake of nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium while natural farming giving lowest corresponding values. Among the varieties evaluated wheat variety HPW 368 and rice variety Him Palam Lal Dhan 1 (HPR 2795) gave better productivity and profitability under direct seeded upland conditions.

Reviewer 2 Report

The main purpose of this experiment was to study the traits of yield, benefit and element uptake among cultivation practices, rice varieties and wheat varieties at two locations with rice-wheat cropping system. The results aimed at providing scientific support for further promoting rice and wheat production in a rice-wheat cropping system. However, there are some questions:

Line 13: The definition of conservation measures to should be determined. If the rice direct-seeding can be conservation tillage?

Line 19: A space is need between “resulted” and “in”. The same for yield and of at line 23, et al.

Line 24: The B: C ratio is first appearance, so the expression should follow the journal rules.

Abstract: Only description in the abstract, lack of data summary display here. A major revision is required for abstract to show the main results with summarized data.

Keywords: Lack of conservation measures, rice and so on. If the natural farming meant the treatment, it maybe not the important keywords.

Introduction: The unit format does not conform to the specification of journal. There is a lack of understanding of the results of existing studies in the introduction section.

2.3. Experimental Design and Crop Management: Detailed cultivation information of cultivation practices (viz., reduced tillage, zero tillage, conventional tillage and natural farming) should be added to let reader know the differences among cultivation practices treatment. How to deal with rice-wheat rotation?

Line 149: What is the moisture of straw? This is very impotent information. Why is 3 t ha^-1? From the table (lack of unit), there cannot product so much straw. Why?

2.4. Estimation of Productivity, Profitability and Uptake: the author should explain the determination methods of grain yield, straw yield, biological yield, nutrients uptake.

2.5. Statistical Analysis: The multiple comparison is need, also in the tables.

3. Results and Discussion: The description is verbose. Too single expression. It is hard to read and understand the important information. Date description is really important in results. Please rewrite.

The descriptions of root development to explain the differences among cultivation practices at line 192 and other lines are inappropriate with no supported data. Please rewrite.

Line 212: Please mention the missing punctuation.

Line 233-236: No date is supported in the paper.

Line 239: Grammar problem.

Line 319: In table, no unit is here. From the figure 1, the unit is kg ha^-1. The yield is too low and meaningless in practice. Too big mistake here.

Table 1-6: What is the meaning of SEm and CD? Lack of multiple comparison analysis.

The figure 1 and 2 show the same data of the table. Why?

Line 369 and 381: Table 4.66?

Line 413: Grammar problem.

Line 518: A new red rice variety, this concept has not been mentioned before.

Poor quality of language. Many sentences in this manuscript are not easily reads and their meanings of some sentences are not written in a native-English, with a lot of mistakes occurred in syntas, grammar etc. Many sentences are not expressed smoothly and accurately.

Author Response

Reviewer 2:

Comment 1: Line 13: The definition of conservation measures to should be determined. If the rice direct-seeding can be conservation tillage?

Response: We revised the MS file and changes were made as per suggestion.

Comment 3: Line 24: The B: C ratio is first appearance, so the expression should follow the journal rules.

Response: We revised the MS file and changes were made as per the suggestion of reviewer.

Comment 4: Only description in the abstract, lack of data summary display here. A major revision is required for abstract to show the main results with summarized data.

Response: We revised the MS file and made the changes as much as possible and summarized data is not given in the abstract because it will increase the size of the abstract and not possible to give much summarized data here in abstract. Summarized data is given in result and discussion part.

Comment 5: Keywords: Lack of conservation measures, rice and so on. If the natural farming meant the treatment, it maybe not the important keywords.

Response: We revised the MS file and changes were made as per the suggestion of reviewer.

Comment 6: Introduction: The unit format does not conform to the specification of journal. There is a lack of understanding of the results of existing studies in the introduction section.

Response: We revised the MS file and changes were made as per the suggestion of reviewer.

Comment 7: 2.3. Experimental Design and Crop Management: Detailed cultivation information of cultivation practices (viz., reduced tillage, zero tillage, conventional tillage and natural farming) should be added to let reader know the differences among cultivation practices treatment. How to deal with rice-wheat rotation?

Response: We revised the MS file and changes were made as per the suggestion of reviewer.

Comment 8: Line 149: What is the moisture of straw? This is very impotent information. Why is 3 t ha^-1? From the table (lack of unit), there cannot product so much straw. Why?

Response: The wheat and rice crop were harvested from the net plot and sundried for few days and then weighed to get biological yield. The crops were then threshed, cleaned and the weight of grains recorded. The moisture content in grains of both wheat and rice were recorded using a moisture meter and the grain was adjusted at 14 % moisture content in both the crops using the formula given [34, 13 and 20].

Grain yield (at 14 % moisture)	=	100 - moisture (%) in grain	X	grain yield at recorded moisture
		100 - 14

The adjusted grain yield was then subtracted from the total biological yield to get the straw yield. All the yields recorded from the net plot were converted into tones/hectare (t/ha).

The economic yield of both crops was subjected to economic analysis by calculating the cost of cultivation, gross returns, net returns, and B:C ratio in order to determine the economic profitability of treatments in a system. The cost of cultivation of both crops was calculated individually for each type of treatment total. According to the current market rates. The required labour and mechanical power for various operations, such as ploughing, harrowing, and harvesting, were determined on a per-hectare basis. Based on the exact dosage/quantity used, the cost of inputs like seed, fertiliser, and herbicides was calculated. Gross returns were calculated based on prevailing local market price of grain and straw for each treatment separately and expressed in Indian rupee (INR) ha^-1. By deducting the cost of cultivation from the gross returns, and expressing the results in INR ha^-1, the treatment wise net returns were calculated. Benefit: cost ratio was calculated as per the formula given by [34, 13 and 20].

	Net return from treatment (INR ha-1)
B:C ratio =	–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
	Cost of cultivation of the treatment (INR ha-1)

For chemical analysis the representation sample of grain and straw from each plot was taken and subjected to chemical analysis to get the nutrient content in both grain and straw. The yield data as well as the nutrient content data was used to calculate the uptake of the nutrients in grain and straw which were recorded to get the total nutrient uptake.

Comment 10: 2.5. Statistical Analysis: The multiple comparison is need, also in the tables.

Response: Revised.

Comment 11: 3. Results and Discussion: The description is verbose. Too single expression. It is hard to read and understand the important information. Date description is really important in results. Please rewrite. The descriptions of root development to explain the differences among cultivation practices at line 192 and other lines are inappropriate with no supported data. Please rewrite.

Response: We revised the MS file and changes were made as per the suggestion of reviewer.

Comment 12: Line 212: Please mention the missing punctuation.

Response: We revised the MS file and changes were made as per the suggestion of reviewer.

Comment 13: Line 233-236: No date is supported in the paper.

Response: Revised.

Comment 14: Line 239: Grammar problem.

Response: We revised the MS file and changes were made as per the suggestion of reviewer.

Comment 15: Line 319: In table, no unit is here. From the figure 1, the unit is kg ha^-1. The yield is too low and meaningless in practice. Too big mistake here.

Response: We revised the MS file and changes were made as per the suggestion of reviewer.

Comment 16: Table 1-6: What is the meaning of SEm and CD? Lack of multiple comparison analysis.

Response: We revised the MS file and changes were made as per the suggestion of reviewer. SEm: Standard error of mean and CD: Critical difference.

Comment 17: The figure 1 and 2 show the same data of the table. Why?

Comment 18: Line 369 and 381: Table 4.66?

Line 413: Grammar problem.

Response: We revised the MS file and changes were made as per the suggestion of reviewer.

Comment 19: Line 518: A new red rice variety, this concept has not been mentioned before.

Response: This concept has been deleted from the paper.

Comment 20: Poor quality of language. Many sentences in this manuscript are not easily reads and their meanings of some sentences are not written in a native-English, with a lot of mistakes occurred in syntas, grammar etc. Many sentences are not expressed smoothly and accurately.

Response: Thank u for the valuable comment. We revised the MS file and changes were made as per the suggestion of reviewer. If reviewer feels that there is more need to change the language then please specifically mention the line number where changes must be done.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

Authors have addressed my comments and revised the manuscript accordingly. I dont have any further comments. It might be need grammatical and spelling check probably.  

Author Response

Dear reviewer!

Thank you for your valuable time to review and improve our manuscript to publish in this journal.

Regards

Reviewer 2 Report

Comment 4: Only description in the abstract, lack of data summary display here. A major revision is required for abstract to show the main results with summarized data.

Response: We revised the MS file and made the changes as much as possible and summarized data is not given in the abstract because it will increase the size of the abstract and not possible to give much summarized data here in abstract. Summarized data is given in result and discussion part.

I don't agree with the author. The necessary summarized data is the direct interpretation of differences among treatments, but not the things which will increase the size of the abstract. The author should refine the important content of the paper in abstract of suitable size. Summarized data description has not been seen in result and discussion part in the revised MS file. The description in result and discussion part is still verbose and simple. Please rewrite.

Table 1-2 and fig 1-2: The author did not answer why the grain yield should be describe twice in two forms. Is it necessary?

References should be numbered in order of appearance in the MS file.

Author Response

The manuscript entitled as Impact of Cultivation Practices and Varieties on Productivity, Profitability and Nutrient Uptake of Rice (Oryza sativa L.) and Wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) Cropping System in India has enough novelty and data which should be publish in Agriculture journal. Reviewer 2: Comment 1: Comment 4: Only description in the abstract, lack of data summary display here. A major revision is required for abstract to show the main results with summarized data. Response: Thank u for the valuable comment. We revised the MS file and changed the abstract as per suggestions given by reviewer. Comment 2: Table 1-2 and fig 1-2: The author did not answer why the grain yield should be describe twice in two forms. Is it necessary? Response: Thank u for the valuable comment. We revised the MS file and delete the figures from the manuscript because there is no need to describe it twice. Comment 3: References should be numbered in order of appearance in the MS file. Response: Thank u for the valuable comment. We revised the MS file and changed the references as per suggestions given by reviewer.