Soil Aeration and Plastic Film Mulching Increase the Yield Potential and Quality of Tomato (Solanum lycopersicum)
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
All prior comments were addressed.
Author Response
Dear Reviewer,
We would like to thank you for giving us a chance to revise the paper and also for providing constructive suggestions to improve the quality of the paper.
Thank you! I appreciate your help!
Sincerely yours
Yuan li
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
The ms is well organized and easy to follow. Experiments are clearly described and well conducted. Results are convincing and well discussed.
There are, however, a few points that must be addressed.
The most important problem is the models used in Figure 2: Sorry, but I do not understand your fitting models. I cannot understand why you have added a constant (68.00 and 13.80) to the x values of the fitting models of panels a and b. Please, justify.
Also, I found very strange the model adopted for panel c. It is y = a*ln(b+c*ln(x)). I cannot understand this model. Please, explain
Anyway, I suggest the following model for all cases: ln(y) = a + b*ln(x).
Also, add a short explanation of these analyses in the methods. Sometimes like: “Relationships between fruit weight and width, fruit weight and length and fruit width and length were modeled using …..”.
Text changes:
Lines 40-42: Modify the text as follows:
Oxygen deficiency in agricultural soils is also enhanced by the use of plastic film mulching (PFM). PFM is largely used in many cultivations because it greatly reduces evaporation, increases the average soil temperature, decreases the diurnal variation in the temperature of the root zone, increases both topsoil moisture and water-use efficiency (WUE) and improves crop yield [8-12].
Line 64: benefits crop yield and water-use efficiency (WUE) -> benefits crop yield and WUE.
[with the change suggested before WUE is already explained]
Lines 120-121: complete block design, and each treatment was replicated 3 120 times, and 3 repeated sample collections were conducted for each treatment -> complete block design, with three replicates for each combination of treatments, for a total of nine replicates (3 treatment repetitions *3 sample repetitions).
Line 318: Figure 2. The relationship -> Figure 2. Relationships
Author Response
Dear Reviewer,
We would like to thank you for giving us a chance to revise the paper and also for providing constructive suggestions to improve the quality of the paper. Here, we submit a new version of our manuscript that has been modified according to the reviewers’ suggestions. Efforts were also made to correct the mistakes and improve the English of the manuscript. All changes are shown as markups in an attached word file. Thank you! I appreciate your help!
We hope these changes will make the manuscript more acceptable for publication.
Sincerely yours
Yuan li
Point 1: The most important problem is the models used in Figure 2: Sorry, but I do not understand your fitting models. I cannot understand why you have added a constant (68.00 and 13.80) to the x values of the fitting models of panels a and b. Please, justify.
Also, I found very strange the model adopted for panel c. It is y = a*ln(b+c*ln(x)). I cannot understand this model. Please, explain
Anyway, I suggest the following model for all cases: ln(y) = a + b*ln(x).
Also, add a short explanation of these analyses in the methods. Sometimes like: “Relationships between fruit weight and width, fruit weight and length and fruit width and length were modeled using …..”.
Response 1: Thanks for your advice. The Figure 2 was revised as follows.
Figure 2. Relationships between (a) fruit weight and width, (b) fruit weight and length (c) fruit width and length
According to your request, we added: “Relationships between fruit weight and width, fruit weight and length and fruit width and length were modeled using In(y)=2.64+0.31×In(x), In(y)=2.28+0.36×In(x) and In(y)=1.11+0.75×In(x), respectively.”
Point 2: Lines 40-42: Modify the text as follows:
Oxygen deficiency in agricultural soils is also enhanced by the use of plastic film mulching (PFM). PFM is largely used in many cultivations because it greatly reduces evaporation, increases the average soil temperature, decreases the diurnal variation in the temperature of the root zone, increases both topsoil moisture and water-use efficiency (WUE) and improves crop yield [8-12].
Response 2: Thanks for your advice. Lines 40-42 was revised to: Oxygen deficiency in agricultural soils is also enhanced by the use of plastic film mulching (PFM). PFM is largely used in many cultivations because it greatly reduces evaporation, increases the average soil temperature, decreases the diurnal variation in the temperature of the root zone, increases both topsoil moisture and water-use efficiency (WUE) and improves crop yield [8-12].
Point 3: Line 64: benefits crop yield and water-use efficiency (WUE) -> benefits crop yield and WUE.
[with the change suggested before WUE is already explained]
Response 3: Thanks for your advice. We agree with this suggestion. This was changed to “benefits crop yield and WUE”.
Point 4: Lines 120-121: complete block design, and each treatment was replicated 3 times, and 3 repeated sample collections were conducted for each treatment -> complete block design, with three replicates for each combination of treatments, for a total of nine replicates (3 treatment repetitions *3 sample repetitions).
Response 4: Thank you very much for your advice. This was changed to “complete block design, with three replicates for each combination of treatments, for a total of nine replicates (3 treatment repetitions *3 sample repetitions).”.
Point 5: Line 318: Figure 2. The relationship -> Figure 2. Relationships
Response 5: Thanks for your advice. We agree with this suggestion. This was changed to“Figure 2. Relationships between (a) fruit weight and width, (b) fruit weight and length (c) fruit width and length”
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 3 Report
Summary:
In this study, authors investigated the new approaches of soil aeration (micro/nano-bubble aeration (MNBA) and subsurface artificial air layer aeration (SAALA), and plastic film mulching to improve the growth of tomato plant. They reported fruit yield, IWUE, fruit quality under different aeration methods. The measurements included the properties of the tomato plants (dry weight (stem, leave, root, and total dry weights), quality control of the flavor indices (including soluble sugar, titratable acid, and their ratio), nutritional indices (including vitamin C content, soluble solids, lycopene content, and soluble protein), and shape indices of fruit (length, width, weight, and hardness. Both of the aeration systems showed improvement in the agriculture system in certain seasons. Based on their reported results MNBA enhanced the fruit yield and fruit quality such as soluble protein content. Moreover, the PFM method also enhanced the fruit yield. PFM method showed seasonal variation suggesting the importance of the environment condition on choosing the optimized method. Based on all results and economic aspects of the method the combination of both MNBA and FPFM was suggested as an optimized alternative method.
Major comments:
The authors provided detail explanation of the method, and result and discussion. All results were compared in detail. However, there is one major comment regarding the model that was used:
- Line 312, the authors stated that the “Relationships between fruit weight and width, fruit weight and length and fruit width and length were modeled using xxx.” Please justify why logarithmic model was used and if needed add a relevant references for such models.
- Line 312, the authors used models for indicating the relationships between the fruit weight and fruit dimensions but have not conducted any statistical analysis on the regression analysis. What does each intercept and slope means? Are they significantly different? In some cases by converting the numbers to logarithmic values their extent of variation might change. Have authors also examined fitting the values to exponential fit (rather than converting to logarithmic value and obtain R2)? For this they might need to minimize the sum square error between the function of y=a*e^b and then find the parameters. Please indicate if any assumptions were considered in the fittings.
Minor comments:
- The format of the presented tables does not match with each other and the capitalization is not consistent. For example, Table 2, the root-shoot ratio needs to be capitalized to become consistent with rest of the table. Table 3, fruit yield needs to be capitalized. Table 4, tomato needs to be capitalized.
- Please in the footnote of the Table 2 explain each alphabet index that were used throughout the table (a,b,ab, etc).
Author Response
Dear Reviewer,
We would like to thank you for giving us a chance to revise the paper and also for providing constructive suggestions to improve the quality of the paper. Here, we submit a new version of our manuscript that has been modified according to the reviewers’ suggestions. Efforts were also made to correct the mistakes and improve the English of the manuscript. All changes are shown as markups in an attached word file. Thank you! I appreciate your help!
We hope these changes will make the manuscript more acceptable for publication.
Sincerely yours
Yuan li
Point 1: Line 312, the authors stated that the “Relationships between fruit weight and width, fruit weight and length and fruit width and length were modeled using xxx.” Please justify why logarithmic model was used and if needed add a relevant references for such models.
Line 312, the authors used models for indicating the relationships between the fruit weight and fruit dimensions but have not conducted any statistical analysis on the regression analysis. What does each intercept and slope means? Are they significantly different? In some cases by converting the numbers to logarithmic values their extent of variation might change. Have authors also examined fitting the values to exponential fit (rather than converting to logarithmic value and obtain R2)? For this they might need to minimize the sum square error between the function of y=a*e^b and then find the parameters. Please indicate if any assumptions were considered in the fittings.
Response 1: Thank you very much for your advice. We also think this section is confusing. In the earliest version we used linear fitting.
Figure 2. The relationship between (a) fruit weight and width, (b) fruit weight and length (c) fruit width and length
Reviewer suggest all three cases we can use a logarithmic transformation of the variables. Therefore, The Figure 2 was revised as follows.
Figure 2. The relationship between (a) fruit weight and width, (b) fruit weight and length (c) fruit width and length
After this, Reviewer 2 suggest the following model for all cases: ln(y) = a + b*ln(x). According to Reviewer 2’s suggestion, The Figure 2 was revised as follows.
Figure 2. Relationships between (a) fruit weight and width, (b) fruit weight and length (c) fruit width and length
In this formula, there is no specific meaning for intercept and slope. According to your request, we fitting the values to exponential fit. However, the fit is not good. Therefore, it is better to keep the current version.
In fact, Figure 2 is not the focus in this study, it just shows the trend of the correlation.
We've done a similar analysis before[1], and the analysis method is relatively simple.
The relationship between fruit weight with fruit width (A) and fruit length (B). [1]
Thank you for your understanding.
- Li, Y.; Niu, W.; Dyck, M.; Wang, J.; Zou, X. Yields and nutritional of greenhouse tomato in response to different soil aeration volume at two depths of subsurface drip irrigation. Sci Rep. 2016, 6, 39307.
Point 2: The format of the presented tables does not match with each other and the capitalization is not consistent. For example, Table 2, the root-shoot ratio needs to be capitalized to become consistent with rest of the table. Table 3, fruit yield needs to be capitalized. Table 4, tomato needs to be capitalized.
Response 2: Thanks for your advice. We agree with this suggestion. It was changed
Point 3: Please in the footnote of the Table 2 explain each alphabet index that were used throughout the table (a,b,ab, etc).
Response 3: Thanks again for your kind help. It was revised to: Different lowercase letters in the same column indicate significant differences between treatments (Duncan’s test, P < 0.05).
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
This manuscript is a resubmission of an earlier submission. The following is a list of the peer review reports and author responses from that submission.
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Summary:
In this study, authors investigated the effect of soil aeration and plastic film mulching on tomato growth including the fruit yields, IWUE for fruit at two different seasons. They employed two different method of aeration, micro/nano-bubble aeration (MNBA) and subsurface artificial air layer aeration (SAALA). They measured and compared the dry weight (stem, leave, root, and total dry weights), flavor indices (including soluble sugar, titratable acid, and their ratio), nutritional indices (including vitamin C content, soluble solids, lycopene content, and soluble protein), and shape indices of fruit (length, width, weight, and hardness. They concluded that both the soil aeration regardless of the applied method, and the plastic film mulching can improve the dry weight, fruit yield, and IWUE. However, the results and the effectiveness can depends on the season. This work also considered the economic aspects of the methods and reported that by considering the cost and efficiency the combination of MNBA and F-PFM is the best option.
Major comments:
The authors provided detail explanation of the method, and result and discussion. All results were compared in detail. I do not have any majors comments for this manuscript, however there are some minor comments that needs to be addressed for revision.
Minor comments:
- Line 13: There is no need to capitalize plastic in “plastic film mulching” in first line of the Abstract.
- Line 15: Authors need to add the full word for IWUE before bringing the abbreviation
- All numbers in Tables needs to be reported based on significant figure.
- Table 2 on the headlines, for spring it is written “leave” and for autumn “leaves”. This needs to be corrected and be consistent through the manuscript. Moreover, some headlines are in bold and some are not in most of the tables. Please make them all consistent.
- Throughout the tables there are some alphabet (a,b,ab, etc)and it is written that “; Values followed by different small letters in the same column meant significant differences at P< 5%.” These numbers and alphabet are confusing and the explanation is not clear what author means by each alphabet and how did the numbers were ranked?
- Table 4, in “Treatments” column, the formatting needs to be corrected (F-CK)
- Table 6, the columns for fruit length, fruit width, and single fruit weight is missing for the autumn.
Author Response
Dear Reviewer,
We would like to thank you for giving us a chance to revise the paper and also for providing constructive suggestions to improve the quality of the paper. Here, we submit a new version of our manuscript that has been modified according to the reviewers’ suggestions. Efforts were also made to correct the mistakes and improve the English of the manuscript. All changes are shown as markups in an attached word file. Thank you! I appreciate your help!
We hope these changes will make the manuscript more acceptable for publication.
Sincerely yours
Yuan li
Point 1: Line 13: There is no need to capitalize plastic in “plastic film mulching” in first line of the Abstract.
Response 1: Thanks for your advice. This was changed to “plastic film mulching”.
Point 2: Line 15: Authors need to add the full word for IWUE before bringing the abbreviation
Response 2: Thanks for your advice. This was changed to “irrigation water use efficiency (IWUE) and fruit quality…”.
Point 3: All numbers in Tables needs to be reported based on significant figure.
Response 3: : Thanks for your advice. Columns for fruit length, fruit width, and single fruit weight for autumn were added in Table 6. In addition, we added: “However, there were no significant differences in soluble solids during autumn,”and “However, there were no significant differences in fruit length, width, and single fruit weight during autumn” .
Point 4: Table 2 on the headlines, for spring it is written “leave” and for autumn “leaves”. This needs to be corrected and be consistent through the manuscript. Moreover, some headlines are in bold and some are not in most of the tables. Please make them all consistent.
Response 4: Thanks for your advice. All the expressions of “leave” were changed to“leaves”, and all the headlines were checked.
Point 5: Throughout the tables there are some alphabet (a,b,ab, etc)and it is written that “; Values followed by different small letters in the same column meant significant differences at P< 5%.” These numbers and alphabet are confusing and the explanation is not clear what author means by each alphabet and how did the numbers were ranked?
Response 5: Thanks for your advice. This was revised to: Data are presented as the mean±standard deviation (n=9). The values with the same letter within rows are statistically non-significant based on Duncan’s test at p<0.05. ANOVA F-values for main and interaction effects were not significant (ns) or were significant at the ≤5% (*) and ≤ 1% (**) levels. Bold letters indicate significant differences at the ≤5% level.
Point 6: Table 4, in “Treatments” column, the formatting needs to be corrected (F-CK)
Response 6: Thanks for your advice. Table 4, the “Treatments” column was checked. The formatting was done according to the Journal’s requirement.
Point 7: Table 6, the columns for fruit length, fruit width, and single fruit weight is missing for the autumn.
Response 7: Thanks for your advice. As the fruit length, fruit width, and single fruit weight were not significant, they were not added in the previous version. This information was added according to your requirement.
Table 6. Effects of different aeration treatments on shape indices of tomato
|
Season |
|
Tomato in spring |
|
Tomato in autumn |
||||||
|
Treatments |
|
Fruit length (mm) |
Fruit width (mm) |
Single fruit weight (g) |
Hardness (Kpa/m2) |
Fruit length (mm) |
Fruit width (mm) |
Single fruit weight (g) |
Hardness (Kpa/m2) |
|
|
F-CK |
|
50.9±6.0abc |
54.7±1.4ab |
89.2±15.7abc |
10.6±0.8b |
|
41. 7±7.9a |
47.4±7.9a |
77.2±13.7a |
11.6±0.8ab |
|
H-CK |
|
44.2±9.1c |
48.1±5.8c |
60.6±21.5d |
11.4±0.9ab |
|
38.0±5.0a |
46.9±7.8a |
79.2±18.4a |
11.9±1.2ab |
|
N-CK |
|
44.1±4.6c |
51.7±3.8bc |
66.0±14.9cd |
12.2±0.9a |
|
39.0±8.4a |
44.9±7.1a |
65.2±10.3a |
12.0±1.1ab |
|
F-SAALA |
|
54.3±6.7a |
59.0±4.4a |
108.7±28.4a |
10.5±1.0b |
|
48.3±9.7a |
49.4±5.8a |
71.8±16.5a |
12.8±0.9ab |
|
H-SAALA |
|
51.1±3.8ab |
57.7±3.3a |
96.9±18.8ab |
11.3±1.1b |
|
45.0±9.6a |
48.3±7.6a |
77.3±13.2a |
11.9±1.1ab |
|
N-SAALA |
|
49.0±4.7abc |
53.9±2.8b |
80.6±15.8cd |
11.5±1.3ab |
|
47.7±8. 6a |
50.5±7.9a |
75.4±16.3a |
11.8±1.0a |
|
F-MNBA |
|
53.1±7.1ab |
59.0±5.1a |
108.2±31.3a |
11.1±1.0b |
|
43.7±6.7a |
50.3±9.2a |
81.6±14.3a |
11.8±1.1b |
|
H-MNBA |
|
50.2±5.0abc |
58.8±4.3a |
80.2±22.9bcd |
10.8±0.9b |
|
42.5±10.3a |
50.4±8.0a |
67.6±14.7a |
12.7±0.7ab |
|
N-MNBA |
|
46.0±7.7bc |
50.5±6.5bc |
69.8±23.7cd |
11.2±1.1ab |
|
41.4±8.8a |
51.7±3.3a |
78.0±18.9a |
12.1±0.7ab |
|
|
|
|
F-value |
|||||||
|
Plastic film mulching （P） |
|
7.1** |
7.3** |
9.8** |
6.3** |
|
0.3ns |
0.2ns |
1.5ns |
0.2ns |
|
Aeration （A） |
|
6.8* |
20.0** |
10.9** |
2.4ns |
|
2.6ns |
1.7ns |
0.2ns |
1.8ns |
|
P×A |
|
0.7ns |
7.4** |
1.4ns |
1.6ns |
|
1.6ns |
0.2ns |
2.4ns |
0.9ns |
Note: F, full film covering; H, half film covering; N, no film covering; CK, no-aeration treatment; SAALA, subsurface artificial air layer aeration; MNBA, micro-nano bubble water aeration. Data are presented as the mean±standard deviation (n=9). The values with the same letter within rows are statistically non-significant based on Duncan’s test at p<0.05. ANOVA F-values for main and interaction effects were not significant (ns) or were significant at the ≤5% (*) and ≤ 1% (**) levels. Bold letters indicate significant differences at the ≤5% level.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
The paper is interesting and well organized. However, I think that there is room for improvement.
Statistics
- Since in your ANOVAs you have calculated the interaction, this indicates that you have replicates for all treatment combinations, but I did not understand how many replicates you have. Please, explain this.
- Figure 2. Relationships are not linear (panel and b) or variance is not stable (panel c). To solve these problems, in all three cases you can use a logarithmic transformation of the variables (x and y). Also, give the p-values of the regression lines, not only the R2.
- Figure 3. Please, explain which correlation coefficient you have used. Pearson? Also, adjust p-levels on the basis of the number of comparisons, as you have here a problem of multiple testing. I suggest using sequential Bonferroni for p-level correction (https://www.statisticshowto.com/holm-bonferroni-method/). Finally, remove the red cells along the diagonal, since these are the correlations of each variable with itself, and are therefore not useful.
- Line 465, Table 4 does not report correlation. Please, check.
Presentation
Introduction should be rearranged to be stronger I recognize that China is a so big and host a so large fraction of global population that any Chines issue is a world’s issue. However, I think that the Introduction may convey in a stronger way the importance of the study if sections about China are omitted. After all, your study has a more general interest.
Thus, I suggest rearranging the Introduction as follows:
- Delete lines 31-40 (Start directly with lines 41-49)
- Then introduce the PFM problem with a sentence like: “These problems are further exacerbated by the use of plastic films”
- Delete lines 72-75 (Pass directly to lines 75-83)
- Explain counteracting measures with lines 50-71
- Pass to the tomato case with lines 84-91
- Delete lines 91-94 (redundant)
- Conclude with lines 94-97.
To summarize the Introduction will be arranged as follows: Lines 41-99, New sentence “These problems etc.”, Lines 75-83, Lines 50-71, Lines 84-91, Lines 94-97.
Minor
Line 90: Cite these few studies
English
The English is basically ok, but it could be ameliorated at places. For example, I would say:
- Table 1. Experimental design for.. (instead of The design for …)
- Table A1. Main technical (instead of The main technical…)
Author Response
Response to Reviewer 2 Comments
Dear Reviewer,
We would like to thank you for giving us a chance to revise the paper and also for providing constructive suggestions to improve the quality of the paper. Here, we submit a new version of our manuscript that has been modified according to the reviewers’ suggestions. Efforts were also made to correct the mistakes and improve the English of the manuscript. All changes are shown as markups in an attached word file. Thank you! I appreciate your help!
We hope these changes will make the manuscript more acceptable for publication.
Sincerely yours
Yuan li
Statistics
Point 1: Since in your ANOVAs you have calculated the interaction, this indicates that you have replicates for all treatment combinations, but I did not understand how many replicates you have. Please, explain this.
Response 1: There were 9 replicates for each variable, 3 (treatment repetitions) *3 (sample repetitions) =9 (variable repetitions).
This was described in the ”Materials and Methods”: The experiment was arranged as a randomized complete block design, and each treatment was replicated 3 times.
According to your requirements, we added the following: and 3 repeated sample collections were conducted for each treatment.
Point 2: Figure 2. Relationships are not linear (panel and b) or variance is not stable (panel c). To solve these problems, in all three cases you can use a logarithmic transformation of the variables (x and y). Also, give the p-values of the regression lines, not only the R2.
Response 2: Thanks for your advice. The Figure 2 was revised as follows.
Figure 2. The relationship between (a) fruit weight and width, (b) fruit weight and length (c) fruit width and length
Point 3: Figure 3. Please, explain which correlation coefficient you have used. Pearson? Also, adjust p-levels on the basis of the number of comparisons, as you have here a problem of multiple testing. I suggest using sequential Bonferroni for p-level correction (https://www.statisticshowto.com/holm-bonferroni-method/). Finally, remove the red cells along the diagonal, since these are the correlations of each variable with itself, and are therefore not useful.
Response 3: Thanks for your advice. Pearson correlation was used in Figure 3. The figure legend was revised: Figure 3. Pearson correlation between the growth and quality parameters of tomato during spring (a) and autumn (b) under soil aeration and plastic film mulch treatments. *Significant at the 5% level; **Significant at the 1% level (2-tailed).
In addition, the red cells along the diagonal were removed.
Pearson correlation was used in Figure 3. Here, we learned from your advice to use sequential Bonferroni for p-level correction (https://www.statisticshowto.com/holm-bonferroni-method/). We found that Figure 3 did not involve multiple testing. Furthermore, this was also the case in the literature [1-2]. Thank you for your understanding.
- Li, Y.; Niu, W.; Zhang, M.; Wang, J.; Zhang, Z. Artificial soil aeration increases soil bacterial diversity and tomato root performance under greenhouse conditions, Land Degrad Dev. 2020, 30, 1-19.
- Wang, J.; Niu, W.; Li, Y.; Lv, W. Subsurface drip irrigation enhances soil nitrogen and phosphorus metabolism in tomato root zones and promotes tomato growth, Appl Soil Ecol. 2018, 124, 240-251.
Point 4: Line 465, Table 4 does not report correlation. Please, check.
Response 4: This was changed.
Point 5: Introduction should be rearranged to be stronger I recognize that China is a so big and host a so large fraction of global population that any Chines issue is a world’s issue. However, I think that the Introduction may convey in a stronger way the importance of the study if sections about China are omitted. After all, your study has a more general interest. Thus, I suggest rearranging the Introduction as follows:
Response 5: Thanks for your advice. We agree with this suggestion. The Introduction was revised.
Point 6: Delete lines 31-40 (Start directly with lines 41-49)
Response 6: This was deleted.
Point 7: Then introduce the PFM problem with a sentence like: “These problems are further exacerbated by the use of plastic films”
Response 7: This was added: Therefore, root zone hypoxic stress is further exacerbated by the use of plastic films.
Point 8: Delete lines 72-75 (Pass directly to lines 75-83)
Response 8: This was deleted.
Point 9: Explain counteracting measures with lines 50-71
Response 9: This was revised.
Point 10: Pass to the tomato case with lines 84-91
Response 10: This was revised.
Point 11: Delete lines 91-94 (redundant)
Response 11: This was deleted.
Point 12: Conclude with lines 94-97.
Response 12: This was revised.
Point 13: To summarize the Introduction will be arranged as follows: Lines 41-99, New sentence “These problems etc.”, Lines 75-83, Lines 50-71, Lines 84-91, Lines 94-97.
Response 13: Thanks for your advice. This was revised accroding to your requirements.
Point 14: Line 90: Cite these few studies
Response 14: This was cited.
Point 15: Table 1. Experimental design for.. (instead of The design for …)
Response 15: This was changed to: Table 1. Experimental design for the 9 treatment combinations
Point 16: Table A1. Main technical (instead of The main technical…)
Response 16: This was changed to: Main technical parameters of the micro-nano generator.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 3 Report
The authors describe the cultivation of Tomato plants in a greenhouse in autumn and spring. The influence of two main conditions, the use of a plastic film cover and different aeration methods was analyzed in relation to physiological and economical parameters.
Overall the manuscript is written well and the experimental design is reasonable. However, the table layouts makes it very difficult for the reader to prove the claims made in the text.
The tables should be improved in a way that makes the data more falsifiable.
In the following text are more detailed comments:
Title and abstract
- In the title increases needs to be increase.
- In the abstract, Plastic film needs to be plastic film
- Fruit yield instead of fruit yields
- When you use abbreviations for the first time, you need to spell them out (IWUE, PFM).
- In the last sentence you wrote full PFM, you did not mention that before. What is that?
Introduction
The Chinese population is predicted to shrink, not increase.
I understand that the authors would like to claim that an improved agricultural production is necessary specifically for china. The citations 1 and 2 are correct, however, the conclusion is misleading. The Chinese population growth is very minimal (somewhere between 0.1-0.5% in recent years), furthermore until 2050, the Chinese population is expected to shrink from 1439 million in 2020 to 1402 million in 2050. The argument is therefore not valid. I suppose the authors need some reference to china, so they still could argue that it has an enormous population, and with an increased living standard comes increased demand (need a reference for that though). Another option would be to reference the Chinese export capability, which is an important factor to contribute to feed the world wide population, which is drastically increasing.
Line 72/72 -> Got what you mean, but the sentence sounds odd.
Line 76 -> “increases and stabilizes the daily variation”, that is contradicting. I suppose you mean the average temperature increases, while the diurnal variations decrease?
Line 77 -> “Researchers have also found”, you don’t write something like that in an article. You can name the researchers if you would like that, otherwise just state and cite.
Line 79-81 “Moreover, PFM restricts water movement and air 79 exchange between the soil and atmosphere, which is due to the lower concentration of O2 80 in the soil than in the atmosphere.”
- That does not make sense. A lower concentration of O2 in the soil would lead to an increased exchange with the atmosphere. I got that the PFM will block the exchange, but your reason (everything you write after which) is incorrect.
:
You lay out nice arguments, but your connection is weak.
The issue is that PFM and irrigation inhibit plant growth, due to a lack of oxygen. When you combine it with one of the aeration treatments, you likely diminish these negative effects.
I think that point should be made clearer in the end of the introduction.
Material and methods
What is half film covering? You covered only half of the plot?
You should link this text to the respective figure (supplemental figure 1).
- Figure A1…. Not sure about how to label supplemental figures, but better check.
Line 136/137. “Full, half and N treaments, respectively” -> no instead of N
Line 138 “and no-aeration treatment”-> Please clarify again what CK means, in the text here you wrote no-aeration treatment, while in the legend of table 1 you wrote -> surface drip irrigation.
Line 145/146 is “air-layer” the correct term for that? I suppose you mean that you dug a trench?
Line 158 which pots? Your experimental description does not contain pots
Line 174 Fruit yields -> Fruit yield (You are talking about the yield of tomato, so you don’t need a plural here) -> This happens quite a lot throughout the manuscript.
Line 174 -> What is the full fruiting period?
Line 180 and line 203 -> need a line break.
Results
3.1 and table 2 (the following tables/paragraphs have the same issues)
The table is way too confusing. It takes a considerable amount of time to confirm your statements from the graph.
Please make a table that is easier to understand.
Maybe different grouping based on your analysis?
You can use bold letters for significant differences.
Do you need that many decimal places in the numbers?
Though you explain it in the legend, you use too many abbreviations, so the table is hard to interpret
without effort by the reader.
Commonly only p values are presented, I suppose you added the F-values since you want to say something about the coupling effect between mulching and aeration. Though I am not sure what you did there, multiplied the F values?
You normally give p values rather as 0.05 and 0.001 (I know it’s the same like your percentage, but I rarely see articles that use percentage).
Line 245 -> “extremely significant” is not a scientific term -> significant
Same issues as in the comments to 3.1 and table 2.
Figures and tables additional comments
Figure 1 and 2 -> writing is too small
Table 7 -> numbers are corrupted (way to large spacing, first column is corrupted)
Discussion
Lime 469/470 “Overall, our results indicate that soil aeration and PFM 469 result in improved soil physical and chemical properties,” -> That is an overstatement, since you did not measure any soil properties.
Further comment (or rather a question):
The study is based on the soil cultivation of tomato in a greenhouse.
Is that really a common method?
I am familiar with hydroponic culturing systems, where for example the Netherlands have an incredible output.
Though so far I never heard about soil cultivation of tomato in a greenhouse.
Author Response
Dear Reviewer,
We would like to thank you for giving us a chance to revise the paper and also for providing constructive suggestions to improve the quality of the paper. Here, we submit a new version of our manuscript that has been modified according to the reviewers’ suggestions. Efforts were also made to correct the mistakes and improve the English of the manuscript. All changes are shown as markups in an attached word file. Thank you! I appreciate your help!
We hope these changes will make the manuscript more acceptable for publication.
Sincerely yours
Yuan li
Point 1: In the title increases needs to be increase.
Response 1: This was changed.
Point 2: In the abstract, Plastic film needs to be plastic film
Response 2: Thanks for your advice. This was changed to “plastic film mulching”.
Point 3: Fruit yield instead of fruit yields
Response 3: We are very sorry for our mistakes; I have checked all spelling, grammar, and formatting.
Point 4 When you use abbreviations for the first time, you need to spell them out (IWUE, PFM).
Response 4: Thanks for your advice. This was changed.
Point 5: In the last sentence you wrote full PFM, you did not mention that before. What is that?
Response 5: This was changed to: Plastic film mulching (PFM) significantly improved the total dry weight, fruit yield and IWUE during both seasons.
Point 6: The Chinese population is predicted to shrink, not increase.
I understand that the authors would like to claim that an improved agricultural production is necessary specifically for china. The citations 1 and 2 are correct, however, the conclusion is misleading. The Chinese population growth is very minimal (somewhere between 0.1-0.5% in recent years), furthermore until 2050, the Chinese population is expected to shrink from 1439 million in 2020 to 1402 million in 2050. The argument is therefore not valid. I suppose the authors need some reference to china, so they still could argue that it has an enormous population, and with an increased living standard comes increased demand (need a reference for that though). Another option would be to reference the Chinese export capability, which is an important factor to contribute to feed the world wide population, which is drastically increasing.
Response 6: Good comments. Your suggestion is very good. However, according to Reviewer 2’s suggestion, this paragraph was deleted. Thanks again for your kind help.
Point 7: Line 72/72 -> Got what you mean, but the sentence sounds odd.
Response 7: Thank you very much for your advice. According to Reviewer 2’s suggestion, this paragraph was deleted.
Point 8: Line 76 -> “increases and stabilizes the daily variation”, that is contradicting. I suppose you mean the average temperature increases, while the diurnal variations decrease?
Response 8: We agree with this suggestion. This was changed to: PFM greatly reduces evaporation, increases the average soil temperature, decreases the diurnal variation in the temperature of the root zone, increases both topsoil moisture and WUE and improves crop yields.
Point 9: Line 77 -> “Researchers have also found”, you don’t write something like that in an article. You can name the researchers if you would like that, otherwise just state and cite.
Response 9: We agree with this suggestion. This was changed to: Mo et al.'s research [13] also found that PFM can effectively improve sunlight reflectance and decrease air flow and weed and pest pressure at the soil surface.
Point 10: Line 79-81 “Moreover, PFM restricts water movement and air exchange between the soil and atmosphere, which is due to the lower concentration of O2 in the soil than in the atmosphere.” That does not make sense. A lower concentration of O2 in the soil would lead to an increased exchange with the atmosphere. I got that the PFM will block the exchange, but your reason (everything you write after which) is incorrect.
Response 10: Thank you very much for your advice. We deleted the sentence: Moreover, PFM restricts water movement and air exchange between the soil and atmosphere, which is due to the lower concentration of O2 in the soil than in the atmosphere.
Point 11: You lay out nice arguments, but your connection is weak. The issue is that PFM and irrigation inhibit plant growth, due to a lack of oxygen. When you combine it with one of the aeration treatments, you likely diminish these negative effects. I think that point should be made clearer in the end of the introduction.
Response 11: Thank you for your suggestion. We added the sentence: PFM and irrigation inhibit plant growth due to a lack of oxygen, and combined with one of the aeration treatments, are likely to diminish the negative effects of root zone oxygen stress.
Point 12: What is half film covering? You covered only half of the plot? You should link this text to the respective figure (supplemental figure 1).
Response 12: We agree with this suggestion. We added the following: The experiment involved 3 levels of PFM (treatments), with F, H and N representing full, half and N treatments, respectively (Figure A1b).
Point 13: Figure A1…. Not sure about how to label supplemental figures, but better check.
Response 13: Thanks for your advice. The formatting was done according to the Journal’s requirement.
Point 14: Line 136/137. “Full, half and N treaments, respectively” -> no instead of N
Response 14: This was changed.
Point 15: Line 138 “and no-aeration treatment”-> Please clarify again what CK means, in the text here you wrote no-aeration treatment, while in the legend of table 1 you wrote -> surface drip irrigation.
Response 15: Thanks for your advice. All expressions of “surface drip irrigation” were changed to “no-aeration treatment”.
Point 16: Line 145/146 is “air-layer” the correct term for that? I suppose you mean that you dug a trench?
Response 16: Yes, you are right. This was changed to the following: the width of trench was 0.70 m.
Point 17: Line 158 which pots? Your experimental description does not contain pots
Response 17: This was changed as follows: Air was mixed with water in the tank by a micro/nano-bubble generator, and then high-density, uniform air was injected into the soil through the subsurface drip irrigation system.
Point 18: Line 174 Fruit yields -> Fruit yield (You are talking about the yield of tomato, so you don’t need a plural here) -> This happens quite a lot throughout the manuscript.
Response 18: Thank you for your suggestion. “Fruit yields” was changed to “Fruit yield”.
Point 19: Line 174 -> What is the full fruiting period?
Response 19: Thank you for your question. The sentence was changed to: Fruit yield was measured during the fruit mature period.
Point 20: Line 180 and line 203 -> need a line break.
Response 20: Thank you for your suggestion. This was changed.
Point 21: 3.1 and table 2 (the following tables/paragraphs have the same issues)
The table is way too confusing. It takes a considerable amount of time to confirm your statements from the graph.
Please make a table that is easier to understand.
Maybe different grouping based on your analysis?
You can use bold letters for significant differences.
Do you need that many decimal places in the numbers?
Though you explain it in the legend, you use too many abbreviations, so the table is hard to interpret without effort by the reader.
Response 21: We agree with this suggestion. We also think this section is confusing. The different groupings were based on our analysis. Because of the 9 treatments in the experiment, we also wanted to simplify the table to ensure clarity. We tried to put the note in the table, but we found that it made the table look more complicated. According to your request, we used bold letters for significant differences. In addition, we deleted non-essential information. We hope these changes meet your requirements.
Point 22: Commonly only p values are presented, I suppose you added the F-values since you want to say something about the coupling effect between mulching and aeration. Though I am not sure what you did there, multiplied the F values?
You normally give p values rather as 0.05 and 0.001 (I know it’s the same like your percentage, but I rarely see articles that use percentage).
Response 22: We want to say the coupling effect between mulching and aeration through F-values. We agree with your comments that P values are more detailed than 0.05 and 0.01. However, we have presented the F-values, so there is no need to give p values in detail. This is also the case in the literature [1-2]. Thank you for your understanding.
- Liao, B.; Wu, X.; Yu, Y.; Luo, S.; Hu, R.; Lu, G. Effects of mild alternate wetting and drying irrigation and mid-season drainage on CH4 and N2O emissions in rice cultivation. Sci Total Environ. 2020, 698, 134212.
- Li Y.; Niu W.; Cao X, et al. Effect of soil aeration on root morphology and photosynthetic characteristics of potted tomato plants (Solanum lycopersicum) at different NaCl salinity levels. BMC Plant Bio. 2019, 19, 1-15
Point 23: Line 245 -> “extremely significant” is not a scientific term -> significant
Same issues as in the comments to 3.1 and table 2.
Response 23: Thank you for your suggestion. This was changed.
Point 24: Figures and tables additional comments
Figure 1 and 2 -> writing is too small
Table 7 -> numbers are corrupted (way to large spacing, first column is corrupted)
Response 24:
Thank you very much for your advice. We redrew Figure 1 and 2.
Figure 1. Sketch map of (a) Subsurface artificial air layer aeration and (b) Micro-nano bubble water aeration
Figure 2. The relationship between (a) fruit weight and width, (b) fruit weight and length (c) fruit width and length
Table 7 was changed as follows:
Table 7. Economic analysis of soil aeration and plastic film mulch treatments in a 100-m-long greenhouse
|
Season |
Treatments |
Additional labor cost for plastic film mulch (yuan) |
Additional labor cost for soil aeration (yuan) |
Additional electricity (yuan) |
plastic film cost (yuan) |
Depreciation of the equipment (yuan) |
Total Yield (kg) |
Total income (yuan) |
Additional income compared with NCK (yuan) |
|
Spring |
F-CK |
300 |
0 |
0 |
100 |
0 |
5733 |
25799 |
6353 |
|
H-CK |
300 |
0 |
0 |
50 |
0 |
4915 |
22119 |
2723 |
|
|
N-CK |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
4232 |
19046 |
0 |
|
|
F-SAALA |
300 |
1000 |
0 |
100 |
6000 |
7161 |
32226 |
5780 |
|
|
H-SAALA |
300 |
1000 |
0 |
50 |
6000 |
5986 |
26936 |
540 |
|
|
N-SAALA |
0 |
1000 |
0 |
0 |
6000 |
5463 |
24585 |
-1461 |
|
|
F-MNBA |
300 |
150 |
60 |
100 |
1500 |
6183 |
27825 |
6669 |
|
|
H-MNBA |
300 |
150 |
60 |
50 |
1500 |
5252 |
23632 |
2526 |
|
|
N-MNBA |
0 |
150 |
60 |
0 |
1500 |
4787 |
21542 |
786 |
|
|
Autumn |
F-CK |
300 |
0 |
0 |
100 |
0 |
4741 |
21337 |
2357 |
|
H-CK |
300 |
0 |
0 |
50 |
0 |
4525 |
20362 |
1432 |
|
|
N-CK |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
4129 |
18580 |
0 |
|
|
F-SAALA |
300 |
1000 |
0 |
100 |
6000 |
5969 |
26861 |
881 |
|
|
H-SAALA |
300 |
1000 |
0 |
50 |
6000 |
4966 |
22346 |
-3584 |
|
|
N-SAALA |
0 |
1000 |
0 |
0 |
6000 |
5077 |
22845 |
-2735 |
|
|
F-MNBA |
300 |
150 |
60 |
100 |
1500 |
5148 |
23166 |
2476 |
|
|
H-MNBA |
300 |
150 |
60 |
50 |
1500 |
5238 |
23570 |
2930 |
|
|
N-MNBA |
0 |
150 |
60 |
0 |
1500 |
4945 |
22251 |
1961 |
Note: F, full film covering; H, half film covering; N, no film covering; CK, no-aeration treatment; SAALA, subsurface artificial air layer aeration; MNBA, micro-nano bubble water aeration
Point 25: Discussion.
Lime 469/470 “Overall, our results indicate that soil aeration and PFM 469 result in improved soil physical and chemical properties,” -> That is an overstatement, since you did not measure any soil properties.
Response 25: Thank you for your suggestion. The sentence was changed to: Overall, our results indicate that both soil aeration and PFM increased dry matter accumulation, plant growth and the quality of tomato.
Point 26: Further comment (or rather a question):
The study is based on the soil cultivation of tomato in a greenhouse. Is that really a common method?
I am familiar with hydroponic culturing systems, where for example the Netherlands have an incredible output.
Though so far I never heard about soil cultivation of tomato in a greenhouse.
Response 26: Thank you for your question. Yes, it is a common method in China, especially in northern China. As far as I know, most tomatoes in Shaanxi pProvince are grown in greenhouses. The photos of this experiment are shown below.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
