Application of Smart Techniques, Internet of Things and Data Mining for Resource Use Efficient and Sustainable Crop Production
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report (New Reviewer)
The present article entitled“Smart Advancements, Internet of Things, Application of Smart Techniques and Data Mining for Resource Use Efficient and Sustainable Crop Production” is of great importance. Overall, the manuscript is well-written.
However, there is a need for a minor revision to improve its quality.
Following are the general reviews to be suggested for the quality of the manuscript.
1.Authors need to review the manuscript for improving language and grammatical mistakes.
2.Title: I suggest the title as “Application of Smart Techniques, Internet of Things, and Data Mining for Resource Use Efficient and Sustainable Crop Production”. Smart Advancements better to be removed as it is covered by rest of the title.
3.Line 101: Section 2. Climate change and its effects on various crops: A need of smart crop production.
4.Giving a single read to the whole section is quite lengthy. I suggest to break down the section into headings or possibly in paragraphs (1 paragraph/climatic factor) for a better understanding of climatic effects as well as for the ease of readers.
5.Line 136: Recheck the 42 and 45°C and maintain similar pattern for using spacing between values and units. 42 and 45 °C.
6.Line 144, 145: 30°C, 25°C, check throughout the manuscript.
7.Line 197-200: Precision agriculture is being used……………... is quite vague or missing some words to clarify the whole concept. A rephrasing is required to provide the main concept behind the line.
8.Lines 219-222. Check the citation 113 and the caption of Figure 4. Correct the format.
9.Line 448: Section 7. Artificial lighting such as LED was mentioned but did not discuss appropriately in brief detail. Add some details with relevant references that which LEDs are in use and brief benefits over other available options.
10.Recheck the reference format and italicize the scientific names. L. is non italic (Line 723), use similar format for scientific names.
11.Line 715: 5th as 5th recheck and correct throughout manuscript.
12.Line 914: LoRa® as LoRa® recheck and correct throughout manuscript.
13.There is lack of mention about smart indoor farming in abstract and conclusion. Please add some lines in abstract and conclusion about section 7. Smart Indoor farming / Vertical farming.
14.In abstract and conclusion section mentioning of some statistical numbers would be great.
15.Please add some details that how much crop productivity / yield can be increased or the positive impact on various crop management practices including irrigation, fertilization and disease control using smart techniques and IOT by mentioning some reported statistical numbers.
Author Response
See attached file
Author Response File: 
Author Response.docx
Reviewer 2 Report (New Reviewer)
The review article “Smart Advancements, Internet of Things, Application of Smart Techniques and Data Mining for Resource Use Efficient and Sustainable Crop Production is a good piece of information. I endorse the publication of the manuscript after major corrections. However, I have some suggestions, the incorporation of which will increase the quality of the work.
1. Introduction should be improved, and old references needs to be removed.
2. Conclusions and future guidelines needs improvement.
3. In this review article, in total 185 references were mentioned. Please reduce references upto 100.
Author Response
See attached file
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Reviewer 3 Report (New Reviewer)
The manuscript is interesting and well written. Which program did you use to form the Figures? Indicate and cite this program, please.
Please provide more information on the data mining and the techniques utilized. Why are they important and why are preferred over the other techniques? You can refer to and cite the following literature:
Akin, M., Eyduran, S. P., Eyduran, E., & Reed, B. M. (2020). Analysis of macro nutrient related growth responses using multivariate adaptive regression splines. PCTOC, 140, 661-670.
Akin, M., Hand, C., Eyduran, E., & Reed, B. M. (2018). Predicting minor nutrient requirements of hazelnut shoot cultures using regression trees. PCTOC, 132, 545-559.
Line 112: Correct as “… one of the critical factors… ”
Line 276: Rephrase the sentence “Climate change has impacted on water cycle and intensity of droughts has been increased”
Line 290: Correct as “Advanced”
Line 290: Rephrase the sentence “Advance technology has revolutionized the decision support assisted irrigation system [127] and contributed to develop a more precise and efficient irrigation systems which not only integrates soil moisture and climate sensors but also integrates internet assisted cloud system for real time data observation and dynamic simulation models are linked to observe the impact of irrigation on crop growth and estimate productivity and on the basis of data analysis and yield predictions irrigation amount is finalized which is then supplied through automatic irrigation control system.”
Line 413: Correct as ” The sensors used ”
Line 455: Correct as “constituting of …”
Line 460: Correct as “been used“
Line 466: Correct as “ has also been proven ”
Line 504: Rephrase the sentence, please: “Study presented a review of the smart techniques developed and being utilized to 504 tackle the consequences of climate change and sustaining crop productivity.”
Conclusions and Future Guidesions section should be improved further.
Author Response
See attached file
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Round 2
Reviewer 2 Report (New Reviewer)
Author addressed all comments in revised MS.
References should be checked carefully in both section: text and reference .
Reviewer 3 Report (New Reviewer)
The manuscript could be accepted in the present form.
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
1、Figure 1 and Figure 6 express basically the same content, and it is recommended to integrate the two figures.
2、There are grammatical errors in the article. The tense, grammar and expressions of the article need to be checked and revised carefully.
3. Part 3 spends a lot of time on the effect of chemical substances on the anti-seasonal production of agricultural products, but does not ignore the fact that the main point of the article is on smart technology. Part 3/4/5 does not reflect the application of IOT technology in modern agriculture, which is not consistent with the emphasis on IOT in the title and introduction.
4. In the structure of the article, parts 6-9 are all smart technology applications. It is suggested that the application of smart technology in smart agriculture at different production nodes be used as the classification standard, so that the lines are more logical.
Author Response
Response to Reviewer 1 Comments
Dear reviewer, thank you for providing valuable comments. Manuscript is extensively revised (Track changes), modified and overall text is improved. Further details and information are added with latest references. Manuscript is modified according to the comments and suggestions from all reviewers. Findings and conclusion of study are not affected by these modifications, and they are same as before. Improvements and responses to the comments are indicated below.
Point 1:、Figure 1 and Figure 6 express basically the same content, and it is recommended to integrate the two figures.
Response 1:
Thank you for the suggestion. We would like to retain the Figures as Figure 1 indicates the overall scheme of smart farming components including soil and weather sensors, insect traps, drone, cameras and robotics integration as well as their coupling with artificial intelligence and internet and finally the end user smart applications. Whereas Figure 6 is more specific to the advanced irrigation hub assisted with real time soil and weather conditions for automatic irrigations based on prevailing conditions.
Point 2:There are grammatical errors in the article. The tense, grammar and expressions of the article need to be checked and revised carefully.
Response 2:
Article is revised, and we have improved the mistakes.
Point 3: Part 3 spends a lot of time on the effect of chemical substances on the anti-seasonal production of agricultural products but does not ignore the fact that the main point of the article is on smart technology. Part 3/4/5 does not reflect the application of IOT technology in modern agriculture, which is not consistent with the emphasis on IOT in the title and introduction.
Response 3:
We agree with the suggestion. And we have modified the manuscript. Part 3, 4, 5 covering off-season production of fruit crops, for continuous availability, quality enhancement in fruit farming and postharvest biology and measures to improve horticultural production respectively, are removed from the manuscript.
Point 4: In the structure of the article, parts 6-9 are all smart technology applications. It is suggested that the application of smart technology in smart agriculture at different production nodes be used as the classification standard, so that the lines are more logical.
Response 4:
Parts 6-9 are improved. Additional references are added. Current part 7 covering major obstacles is also improved and supported with the latest references.
Reviewer 2 Report
See my comments in the attached file
Comments for author File: 
Comments.pdf
Author Response
All the responses are reported in the attached file.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
The article has been greatly revised according to the suggestions I put forward before, and there is no problem on the whole. However, the article still has some minor problems that need to be modified.
1.The names of figures 1 and 2 are separated from the picture.
2.It is suggested to carefully examine the expression of the full text,because a small part of the article is not accurate enough.
Author Response
See attached file
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Reviewer 2 Report
I recommend a deep re-writing of the paper and strength the position of the paper and intended contribution. The general writing is to general and with many vague ideas.
Author Response
See attached file
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
