Assessing Grain Yield and Achieving Enhanced Quality in Organic Farming: Efficiency of Winter Wheat Mixtures System

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The problem raised in the article is quite relevant, but in the introduction, the description of the scientific problem is based on old literary sources, only a few from the last decade.

The article is about the stability and quality of the winter wheat, when choosing the cited articles, a number of them are related to spring wheat.

When presenting the yield and other indicators, the data is presented in aggregate, while it is clear that the year has a significant influence on the results (Table 2), then maybe other factors should be examined in individual years and there will also be other differences (and maybe significant). There is a lack of explanation by the authors regarding such statistical processing and presentation of data.

When analyzing the advantages and disadvantages of the varieties, both in the introduction and in the discussion, it would be desirable to refer to more recent scientific articles.

Considering the abundance of data presented, the conclusions are very concise and do not fully reflect the obtained results. The data should be revisited and the novelty of the findings considered.

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

 

The article is of interest to the community of organic farming. The results demonstrate the importance of variety mixtures and possible ways how to tackle such global issues as improving of yield performance, resistance to diseases and grain quality without pesticides and synthetic fertilizers.

Below, I have provided some comments and thoughts to help improve the manuscript.

Title. The authors made a big focus on influence of varieties mixtures on yield stability, it is mentioned in the title and aim of this study (line: 87). But no own results of yield stability from this study are mentioned in the article.

Introduction. Blending of wheat varieties of different quality to buffer lower quality wheats and get end product of desirable quality is routing work of millers. Please, provide main known recommendations and key points about wheat blending in introduction.

Materials and Methods. Figure 1 demonstrates that there were drought conditions in June. Could you please write a bit more details about drought conditions. As well, provide explanation why yield was two times less in 2020-2021 season, whereas according to Figure 1 summer of 2021 was the most favorable in terms of precipitation. If the yield was reduced because of lower germination (the reason is not clear from Figure 1) why thousand kernel weight was the lowest in 2020-2021? In the case of lower plants density TKW in opposite would be increased.

Results. To determine the effect of varieties mixtures on agronomic performance authors used mean values of three years Table 2. However, results of 2020-2021 crop season were significantly different compared to other seasons. It would be reasonable to check effects separately for seasons as well. Probably, it will demonstrate significant influence of mixtures on yield performance or spike number within season.

Discussion. Some topics of this study are not covered or not discussed enough.

- In lines (265-267) “A positive correlation was found between yield components and grain yield it is indicated that yield components significantly affected grain yield” – TKW and plant height always correlate better with yield under drought conditions comparing with normal weather conditions. But it is not mentioned.

 

- Please provide some key ideas why the yield was not increased in this study, what can be done in future? Could you provide some suggestions how positive effect of cultivar mixtures on yield performance can be improved. Maybe many component mixtures have advantages over two components. Please provide some examples or recommendations which optimal/complementary traits should have varieties for successful combining them in mixtures.

- If the results of disease evaluation are not mentioned in this article, probably authors can share main observations in discussion section with reference - data not presented here?

- Can you provide some evidences of the hypothesis, that overall quality parameters can be increased growing cultivars together. For example, significantly higher production of pure protein or higher grain quality per hectare in mixtures comparing with separate growing.

 

Conclusions. In lines (350-351) “In this study, applying combinations of winter wheat varieties does guarantee stable grain production”. - Yield stability is not mentioned in the results, dough stability is mentioned only.

 

Author Response

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Reviewer 3 Report

Dear authors,

The manuscript deals with a very interesting subject in terms of finding the most suitable wheat combinations for improving yield stability and quality in organic farming.

Your paper is well-structured and supported by appropriate literature review. However, there is a need to make certain corrections and improvements to your manuscript to make it suitable for publication.

All comments and suggestions are in the text of your manuscript and I hope they will contribute to its quality to make it suitable for publication.

 

Best regards!

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

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Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

No more suggestions.

Reviewer 3 Report

Dear authors,

I am glad that you accepted most of the suggestions and improved the quality of your work.

Although you have shown individual years in the supplementary file, it is still only about average values.

I advise you to present statistics with interactions in future manuscript with multi-year research.

 

Best regards!

Comments for author File: Comments.docx