Predicting the Nitrogen Quota Application Rate in a Double Rice Cropping System Based on Rice–Soil Nitrogen Balance and ¹⁵N Labelling Analysis

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Dear Authors

Greeting!

I enjoyed reviewing the manuscript entitled Predicting the nitrogen quota application rate in a double rice cropping system based on rice‒soil nitrogen balance and 15N la-belling analysis. This manuscript reports the study aimed to evaluate the rice yield and N adsorption responses to different N application rates, to study the characteristic of the N budget, and to calculate the N quota application rate. This study provided insight into N management in a double-rice cultivation system.

However, I found some weaknesses that should authors improve:

1. abstract is too long; hence, authors should re-write to 200 words (state the objective, methods, 2 to 3 significant results, and implications of the results.

2. Methods; please state the field trial design

3. Results; remove subsection 3.1 to subsection 2.1 

4.  Check the attached manuscript for small comments and correction

Keep good work. best regard

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Dear Editor-in-Chief We are very pleased to learn from your reports about revising our manuscript entitled “Predicting the nitrogen quota application rate in a double rice cropping system based on rice‒soil nitrogen balance and 15N labelling analysis (Agriculture-2176766)”. Thank you for your patience, and we thank the reviewers for their helpful comments and advice. For simplicity, we have repeated the comments from the reviewers below (in a different font). We have responded to the comments point by point. Response to Reviewer 1 General comments: I enjoyed reviewing the manuscript entitled Predicting the nitrogen quota application rate in a double rice cropping system based on rice‒soil nitrogen balance and 15N la-belling analysis. This manuscript reports the study aimed to evaluate the rice yield and N adsorption responses to different N application rates, to study the characteristic of the N budget, and to calculate the N quota application rate. This study provided insight into N management in a double-rice cultivation system. Keep good work. best regard. However, I found some weaknesses that should authors improve. Comment 1: abstract is too long; hence, authors should re-write to 200 words (state the objective, methods, 2 to 3 significant results, and implications of the results. Response: Thank you for the valuable suggestion. In the revised manuscript, we have rewriten the abstract part, deleted the un-necessary description, and reduced the abstract to the 270 words, which meets the requirements of the Agriculture journal. Comment 2: Methods; please state the field trial design Response: Thank you for the valuable suggestion. In this study, two-year field and 15N microregion experiments were conducted to evaluate the N fate in a soil‒rice system under a series of different N rate treatments from 2020 to 2021. In the original manuscript, we erroneously write the field experiment as the pot experiment. In the revised manuscript, we have changed it. Comment 3: Results; remove subsection 3.1 to subsection 2.1. Response: Thank you for the valuable suggestion. In the revised manuscript, we have removed the subsection 3.1 to subsection 2.1, according to the reviewer’s comment. Comment 4: Check the attached manuscript for small comments and correction. Response: Thank you for the valuable suggestion. We have checked through the whole manuscript carefully and some minor errors are corrected. We sincerely appreciate the comments and the editor’s effort and time spent in reviewing our paper. Comment 5: Extensive editing of English language and style required Response: Thank you for the valuable suggestion. In order to improve the quality of the article, the whole manuscript was edited for proper English language, grammar, punctuation, spelling, and overall style by one or more of the highly qualified native English speaking editors at AJE This certificate may be verified on the AJE website using the verification code 01F8-FFE6-2880-50FF-45AP. Hopefully, we have addressed all of your concerns. I look forward to hearing your good news. Truly yours, Cao Xiaochuang, Yu Yijun State Key Laboratory of Rice Biology, China National Rice Research Institute, Hangzhou, 310006, Zhejiang, P. R. China E-mail: [email protected], [email protected]

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

Professional editing is recommended. Please revise the manuscript for grammatical mistakes and English polishing. 

Because there are no line numbers, find the comments in the PDF file.

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Dear Editor-in-Chief We are very pleased to learn from your reports about revising our manuscript entitled “Predicting the nitrogen quota application rate in a double rice cropping system based on rice‒soil nitrogen balance and 15N labelling analysis (Agriculture-2176766)”. Thank you for your patience, and we thank the reviewers for their helpful comments and advice. For simplicity, we have repeated the comments from the reviewers below (in a different font). We have responded to the comments point by point. Response to Reviewer 2 Comment 1: The abstract is too long and contradicts the rules of the journal. Please correct it. Use comma (,) instead of repetition and keep only the last "and" keywords should be different from title words. Make them specific. Response: Thank you for the valuable suggestion. In the revised manuscript, we have rewriten the abstract part, deleted the un-necessary description, and reduced the abstract to the 270 words, which meets the requirements of the Agriculture journal. We have changed the description as following: “The apparent N recovery rate, N residual rate and N loss rate were 23.5-34.4%, 17.0-47.1% and 26.0-47.8 for the early rice, and 32.8-37.3%, 74.2-87.0% and 71.5-92.1% for the late rice”. The Keywords changed as following: Early and late rice, N uptake, N use efficiency, rice-soil system, 15N istopic labelling. Comment 2: This introduction part should be improved. there is one paper recently published about Interaction of Biochar with Chemical, Green and Biological Nitrogen Fertilizers on Nitrogen Use Efficiency Indices. you can add it here: DOI: 10.3390/agronomy12092106 Response: Thank you for the valuable suggestion. In the revised manuscript, we have added the recently published article related to the N uptake and utilization in the double rice system. Comment 3: Authors should better explain the novelty of the study and what it offers in comparison to previous literature. Response: Thank you for the valuable suggestion. However, most work has mainly focused on the characteristics of N uptake and N utilization based on one or more methods in a single crop season and has not yet taken into account the fate of N in soil-crop systems and the residual effect of N in the rotation cycle [22]. Quantitative monitoring of the fate and residual effect of N in double-cropping rice areas can enable researchers to accurately understand the characteristics of the N balance and then evaluate its agronomic and environmental effects more scientifically and comprehensively. In the recised manuscript, we have added the related description. Comment 4: The table is illegible and confusing and should be corrected; The image quality is very low. Response: Thanks for the kind suggestion. I am really sorry for the illegible and confusing description in all the Tables. In the revised manuscript, we have changed it correctly. In fact, the quality of all figures is very good, the lower resolution may be related to the system after submitted to the system. Comment 5: The discussion is not well done. To interpretation of those you need to compare them with other studies. What are the strength or weakness of your results? What is your interpretation for them? Make your interpretation strong with other works. Response: Thanks for the kind suggestion. In the revised manuscript, we have re-written the discussion parts, added the published article related to the N uptake and utilization in the double rice system, and explained and discussed the likely reason to support our conclusion. Comment 6: Extensive editing of English language and style required Response: Thank you for the valuable suggestion. In order to improve the quality of the article, the whole manuscript was edited for proper English language, grammar, punctuation, spelling, and overall style by one or more of the highly qualified native English speaking editors at AJE. This certificate may be verified on the AJE website using the verification code 01F8-FFE6-2880-50FF-45AP. Besides, we have checked through the whole manuscript carefully and some minor errors are corrected. We sincerely appreciate the comments and the editor’s effort and time spent in reviewing our paper. We apologize for the improper writing in the manuscript. Hopefully, we have addressed all of your concerns. I look forward to hearing your good news. Truly yours, Cao Xiaochuang, Yu Yijun State Key Laboratory of Rice Biology, China National Rice Research Institute, Hangzhou, 310006, Zhejiang, P. R. China E-mail: [email protected], [email protected]

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

No more comments.