Simultaneous Assessment of Water and Nitrogen Use Efficiency in Rain-Fed Chickpea-Durum Wheat Intercropping Systems
, Benalia Haddad 1, Fatma-Zohra Bouras 1, Mounir Seghouani 1, Bahia Zemmouri 1, Ramzi Gamouh 1, Nadia Hamzaoui 1, Amira Larbi 1, Nazih-Yacer Rebouh 2 and Mourad Latati 1,2,*
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Specific comments
As a researcher in the field of farming, I am very interested in your work. I have looked thoroughly at your article and I see that you did a lot of work on it.
However, There are some problems in the article that need to be solved, if I understand your description correctly. As far as I see, the paper can be accepted if the points below are dealt with appropriately.
Title
1. L3, the title does not specify whether it is an alternative cropping pattern such as intercropping or crop rotation, please add.
Abstract
1. The number of words is too large, so we can consider whether it needs to be reduced.
2. Minimize abbreviations in abstracts and increase the readability of articles.
3. “(r2 = 0.73, p ≤0.001)” Check whether the format is wrong.
4. Page 1, L 39. There are repeated meanings in the keywords, and no nitrogen is involved.
5. L24 error in singular and plural nouns, ‘increase’ should read ‘increases’.
6. L24 ‘unit’ should read ‘units’.
7. L35 ‘0.62 kg kg-1’ is unit has problems.
8. L36 syntax error,“by mixed” should read “by mixing”.
9. L22 please add experimental treatments.
10. L24 please explain what LAI means.
11. L35 whether "kg kg-1" is correct.
12. The treatment of the experiment is not described in the abstract.
13. L28: “decreased significantly” should be corrected to “significantly decreased”.
Keywords
13. L39 whether "Growth period", "Growing period" and “Water use” are appropriate as keywords
Introduction
14. “through irrigation and N- application” Delete the space after N.
15. L105-108 “While the assessment of the possible interactions between WUE and NUE may provide a novel approach and finding for applying this intercropping system as an innovative practices. This may provide a simultaneous optimization of water and N use, in particular under low-inputs agriculture.” Please check if there are any missing references.
16. The introduction part is loose in structure, so it is suggested to condense the language.
17. L44 the preposition is improperly used, suggested to be modified as ‘to’.
18. L48 ‘in-puts’ should read ‘in-put’.
19. L53 ‘Much’ should read ‘Many’.
20. L73 ‘solution’ should read ‘solutions’.
21. L78 ‘Regardless the’ should read ‘Regardless of the’.
22. L80 ‘Intercropping’ should read ‘The intercropping’.
23. L88 ‘from’ should read ‘of’.
24. L90 ‘others’ should read ‘other’.
25. L103 recommended delete ‘the’.
26. L107 ‘practices’ should read ‘practice’.
27. L128 longitude and latitude expression error.
28. L132 article deletion, ‘high’ should read ‘a high’.
29. L136 ‘Mean’ should read ‘The mean’.
30. 145 ‘cumulated’ should read ‘accumulated’.
31. L153 article redundancy, delete ‘amount’.
32. L251 ‘Where’ should read ‘Here’.
33. L263 ‘In intercropping’ should insert ‘the’.
34. L53 “Much” should read “Many”.
35. L65 when “however” precedes the sentence, it should be separated by commas.
36. L69 do not separate commas before “and”.
37. L73 “solution” should read “solutions”.
38. L78 “Regardless the” should read “Regardless of the”.
39. L90 “others” should read “other”.
40. L132, sentences lack element, “high” should read “a high”.
41. L75-76, what is the causal relationship between the increase of unit water consumption and the increase of water use efficiency.
42. L78 "Regardless the recent literature" refers to which literature and whether this is correct.
43. L80 review of intercropping on water and nitrogen use efficiency is lacking, please add.
44. L111 Chickpea and durum wheat as strategic crops for the country, it would be useful to add the relevant national policies here.
45. L53: the countable noun should be “many”.
46. L78–79: there are many related studies.
47. L80: the “,” should be used here instead of “;”.
48. L88–89: the description is not accurate, it should be global per capita wheat consumption.
Materials and Methods
49. L155 The words in the picture are not clear enough, and the picture is distorted. Please add clear pictures, the first letters of the first two words in the abscissa of the picture need to be capitalized.
50. Error bars should be added to all charts or descriptions should be added to the results. At the same time, all statistical methods should be added.
51. “equivalent to 30, 60 and 100 units ha-1 (i.e. N-30, N-60 and N-100)” Please check whether the format is correct and delete the spaces.
52. L131-139 The information in Table 1 need not be described repeatedly.
53. Please note the format in Table 1, and what mean the experimental site?
54. The meteorological information in Table 1 does not indicate the unit.
55. L228, 230, 240, 249, 265, 273. Please keep the formula and formula number format consistent.
56. L131 "show" should be written as "shows", and this mistake appears several times in the article, please correct.
57. L135 "shows also" should read "also shows", and this mistake appears several times in the article, please correct.
58. In table 1, "Sand" and " (%) " are not on one L.
59. L146 punctuation is erroring.
60. L173 there is a redundant space before "30".
61. L178 "desighn" is spelling mistake.
62. L179 the first letter of "practice" is not capitalized.
63. L185 date formatting error.
64. In 2.4 the format of the serial number after each formula is inconsistent.
65. L171 wheat and chickpea variety names should be in italics.
66. L 278 “grain yield (FY)”should be changed “grain yield (GY)”.
67. The month format of the horizontal coordinates in Figure 1 is inconsistent, with some initials capitalised and some not. Also, try not to use similar colours, they are not easily distinguishable.
68. L183, the spacing of the crop is not written in the article, please add it.
69. L183, crop sowing time is lacking in the article, please add.
70. L189, "Plant and soil sampling and measurement" would be better written as "Plant, soil sampling and measurement".
71. L192, add the specific method for soil sampling.
72. L241, which crops are represented by "a" and "b" is not described in the article.
73. L168: there is a missing “.”.
74. There is a lack of information about fertilization, how many times a growing season and how much fertilizer to apply.
75. L166–167: check the correct spelling of “treatment”.
76. L197: capitalize the first letter of “the”.
Result
77. “(table2)” Spaces should be added in the middle.
78. L290-292. Please reconsider this sentence, LAI in 2022 is affected by N level ( P = 0. 02 ).
79. The format of Table 2, 3, 4 should be unified as far as possible.
80. L366. The information of WUEYB is not shown in Table 4.
81. Please describe Figure 3 in detail for reading.
82. L307, the concept of LAI is not correct.
83. In table 2, the table text format is different from other tables.
84. L333 and 335, punctuation is erroring.
85. L383, punctuation is superfluous.
86. L399-401, punctuation are erroring.
87. L404 and 424, "Figure" and "Fig" are not in the same format, please standardise.
88. L426, "system"should be written as "systems".
89. L427, "WUEGYby" should read "WUEGY by".
90. L294, missing punctuation, ‘However’ should insert ‘,’.
91. L412, ‘Regardless’ should insert ‘of’.
92. L294, when “however” precedes the sentence, it should be separated by commas.
93. L412, “Regardless” should read “Regardless of ”.
94. L303-304,“Thus, passing from N-30 to N-60 dose, mixed chickpea-durum wheat GY was increased by +1.04, +0.24, +0.22 and +0.74 t ha-1”should be changed “Thus, passing from N-30 to N-60 dose, mixed chickpea-durum wheat GY was increased by +0.81, +0.24, +0.22 and +0.74 t ha-1”.It is recommended to check prerequisite is N-30 to N-60 carefully.
95. L305-306,“However, from N-30 to N-100 dose, it was significantly increased only in 2020 (+1.49 t ha-1) cropping season. ”This sentence is wrong.It should be changed “However, from N-60 to N-100 dose, it was significantly increased only in 2020 (+1.49 t ha-1) cropping season. ”or “However, from N-30 to N-100 dose, it was significantly increased only in 2020 (+1.71 t ha-1) cropping season.”
96. L328,“increased by 57 and 143 kg ha-1”should be changed “increased by 57 and 143 kg ha-1”The data here does not agree with the calculated data in the table 3.
97. L340,“NUE by 0.002”should be changed “NUE by 0.02”.The data in this paper has been inconsistent with that in the table for many times ,so it is suggested to check and modify the data in the whole paper again.
98. Table 4 “WU (m3 ha) ”should be changed “WU (m3 ha-1)”.
99. L297, "high N-application" is for which years, please explain in the article.
100. L299, 2022 N application level also had a non-significant effect on durum wheat grain yield.
101. Table 2, "GY (t ha-1)" is not centred.
102. Table 2: whether the expression "0. ≤ 0.01" is correct.
103. L327, the expressions "N100" and "N-100" are inconsistent.
104. L340, "Increasing N-application from N-30 to N-100 decreased gradually NUE by 0.002, 1.13 and 0.48 kg kg-1 in chickpea monoculture, and by 0.24, 0.15 and 1.09 kg kg-1 in durum wheat monoculture" is unclear as to which specific years are represented in the article.
105. L355, it is not clear what is meant by "175 m3 and 33 m3".
106. L395, is the statement "19,1,12%" correct.
107. The letters in the analysis of variance (ANOVA) in Figure 2 are incorrectly indicated; please correct them.
108. L312–313: the analysis for GY is not consistent with the contents of Table 2.
109. L316: what is “GW”?
110. L322: delete “only”.
111. How much low, medium and high nitrogen fertilizer should I apply? Please make it clear in the experiment design.
112. L338–339: the analysis does not match the data in Table 3.
113. L342–343: which processing does the content refer to?
114. L344–347: To which processing is this content compared?
115. Comparisons between treatments should make better use of the percentage format.
116. Multiple data varied widely across growing seasons and must be reflected in the analysis and discussed in the discussion.
Discussion
117. It is suggested that this part can be divided into several sections.
118. L452, punctuation is erroring.
119. L464, there is a redundant space before "Application".
120. L467, ‘finding’ should read ‘findings’.
121. L485, ‘lead’ should read ‘leads’.
122. L492, ‘Regardless NNI’ should insert ‘of’.
123. L464, do not separate commas before “Application”.
124. L467, “finding” should read “findings”.
125. L469-471,“Regardless durum wheat monoculture, no relationships was found between water and N supply and their interactions in yield and protein content under limited precipitation over growth period”，the validity of this statement is up for debate.
126. Ls 499-501,“The novel findings in this field research make it possible to define relationships between WUE and NUE over wide range of rain-fed and N-application conditions in semi-arid regions (Fig. 3)”however,figure 3 shows that Water use efficiency (WUE) versus nitrogen use efficiency (NUE) for chickpea and durum.so figure 3 does not confirm this statement.
127. It is suggested to make another diagram of rain conditions and water and nitrogen use efficiency.
128. L442, please cite the relevant literature to support the experimental results.
129. L481, Intercropping chickpea with durum wheat may lead to competition for water and N fertiliser between crops, please discuss.
130. L492, citing relevant literature to validate the results of this study.
131. L499, compared to monocropping, crop growth status and LER for intercropping systems are not discussed in the article, please discuss.
132. There is too much variation between years in the analysis of results, but this is not discussed in the discussion, please add. In addition, the discussion is not in-depth enough.
Conclusions
133. L531, ‘crop’ should read ‘crops’, delete ‘the’.
134. L535, ‘another’ should read ‘other’.
135. L492, “Regardless NNI” should insert “of”.
136. The conclusions are not focused enough on the results and the language is too cumbersome, please be concise.
137. There are fewer references in the discussion.
138. The discussion is not deep enough and lacks organization.
139. Discussions of crop growth and yield-related elements, as well as large inter-annual data variation, are missing from the discussion.
140. The conclusion section is not sufficiently focused.
References
141. Please check whether the corner marks in the references are correct.
142. The format of references should be consistent with the requirements of journals.
143. There are also many problems in the reference, such as error in final sequence serial numbers, doi missing in some articles and missing page numbers.
144. L673–674: Delete these two blank lines.
Author Response
Reviewer 3
Comments and Suggestions for Authors
Specific comments
C1. As a researcher in the field of farming, I am very interested in your work. I have looked thoroughly at your article and I see that you did a lot of work on it.
However, There are some problems in the article that need to be solved, if I understand your description correctly. As far as I see, the paper can be accepted if the points below are dealt with appropriately.
R: Thanks for your valuable comment. We inform you that we reported all your suggestions in the new text.
C2. Title
- L3, the title does not specify whether it is an alternative cropping pattern such as intercropping or crop rotation, please add.
-Done. Yes offcourse we work on intercropping system. Modification was reported I the title. Please see the new title.
C3. Abstract
- The number of words is too large, so we can consider whether it needs to be reduced.
-Done. Abstract words were reduced from 348 to 328 words. We are convenced that 328 words are the minimum words that describe well our work, as that, in the first sentence we cited the back ground of our study, then we mention the novelty and objectives, in third sentence we mentioned results and which were quantified (recommendation of journal) and finally we put our conclusion. Modification was reported I the abstract. Please see the new abstract.
- Minimize abbreviations in abstracts and increase the readability of articles.
- Done. We maintain only WUE and NUE that are considered as key word in our work. Please see new abstract
- “(r2 = 0.73, p ≤0.001)” Check whether the format is wrong.
- Done. Please see L32
- Page 1, L 39. There are repeated meanings in the keywords, and no nitrogen is involved.
- Done. We have just a mistake, we want said growing season and not growing period. This was corrected. Please see L38
- L24 error in singular and plural nouns, ‘increase’ should read ‘increases’.
- L24 ‘unit’ should read ‘units’.
- Done. Please see L22
- L35 ‘0.62 kg kg-1’ is unit has problems.
- No, these represent the both units of WUE and NUE
- L36 syntax error,“by mixed” should read “by mixing”.
- Done. Please see L34
- L22 please add experimental treatments.
Here we want said experiment years and not experimental threatment
- L24 please explains what LAI means.
- Done. As your previous recommendation we deleted abreveation and we put the proper definition of index. Please see L21
- L35 whether "kg kg-1" is correct.
Done we want said kg kg-1 , yes this is the unit of NUE, for exemple : that mean 1 kg uptake of N thanks to N kg of N-applied fertilizer. Please see L33
- The treatment of the experiment is not described in the abstract.
We well described our experiment treatments in material and method section. Indeed to well report your recommendation in terms of reducing abstract word we prefer to not make long our abstract by adding our experiment treatments.
- L28: “decreased significantly” should be corrected to “significantly decreased”.
- Done. Please see L26
Keywords
- L39 whether "Growth period", "Growing period" and “Water use” are appropriate as keywords
- Done. Please see the new keys words : L38
C4. Introduction
- “through irrigation and N- application” Delete the space after N.
- Done. This was reformulated during English improvement. See all red words in the text
- L105-108 “While the assessment of the possible interactions between WUE and NUE may provide a novel approach and finding for applying this intercropping system as an innovative practices. This may provide a simultaneous optimization of water and N use, in particular under low-inputs agriculture.” Please check if there are any missing references.
Here dear reviewer there are no reference because this is our formulation to introduce the novelty of our work and to better explain our hypothesis.
- The introduction part is loose in structure, so it is suggested to condense the language.
Done. The language was condensed and improved in introduction and in all section of manuscript. This improvement was highlighted in the text (see supllementary material) in RED colour.
- L48 ‘in-puts’ should read ‘in-put’.
- Done. This was reformulated during English improvement. See all red words in the text
- L53 ‘Much’ should read ‘Many’.
- Done. Please see L53
- L73 ‘solution’ should read ‘solutions’.
- Done. Please see L74
- L78 ‘Regardless the’ should read ‘Regardless of the’.
- Done. Please see L80
- L80 ‘Intercropping’ should read ‘The intercropping’.
- Done. Please see L82
- L88 ‘from’ should read ‘of’.
- Done. Please see L95
- L90 ‘others’ should read ‘other’.
- Done. Please see L94
- L103 recommended delete ‘the’.
- Done. Please see L105
- L107 ‘practices’ should read ‘practice’.
- Done. Please see L112
- L128 longitude and latitude expression error.
- Done. Please see L135
- L132 article deletion, ‘high’ should read ‘a high’.
- Done. Please see L139
- L136 ‘Mean’ should read ‘The mean’.
- Done. Please see L143
- 145 ‘cumulated’ should read ‘accumulated’.
- Done. Please see L147
- L153 article redundancy, delete ‘amount’.
- Done. Please see L155
- L251 ‘Where’ should read ‘Here’.
- Done. This was reformulated during English improvement. See all red words in the text
- L263 ‘In intercropping’ should insert ‘the’.
- Done. Please see L300
- L53 “Much” should read “Many”.
- Done. Please see L53
- L65 when “however” precedes the sentence, it should be separated by commas.
- Done. Please see check all however word in the text.
- L69 do not separate commas before “and”.
- Done.
- L73 “solution” should read “solutions”.
- Done. Please see 74
- L78 “Regardless the” should read “Regardless of the”.
- Done. Please see L80
- L90 “others” should read “other”.
- Done. Please see L94
- L132, sentences lack element, “high” should read “a high”.
- Done. Please see L139
- L75-76, what is the causal relationship between the increase of unit water consumption and the increase of water use efficiency.
Because water consumption generally lead to high yield and biomass accumulation, so the increase in these indicators. Indeed, high water consumption lead to reduce water evapotranspiration, as that crop will more efficient in use of available water.
- L78 "Regardless the recent literature" refers to which literature and whether this is correct.
Done. We added the main idea and focus of this literature. We mean literature that was reported by the reference 23 and 24. Clarification was reported in the text. Please see L80-82.
- L80 review of intercropping on water and nitrogen use efficiency is lacking, please add.
- Done. Please see L80-81
- L111 Chickpea and durum wheat as strategic crops for the country, it would be useful to add the relevant national policies here.
Done. We added the relevant national policies just in the following paragraph where we described the common practices systems. We also mention this in conclusion and discussion regarding the Algerian national policies. Please see L96-113+discussionn
- L53: the countable noun should be “many”.
- Done.
- L78–79: there are many related studies.
This comment is not clear dear reviewer?
- L80: the “,” should be used here instead of “;”.
- Done.
- L88–89: the description is not accurate; it should be global per capita wheat consumption.
Please dear reviewer can you reformulate this question, it not clear?
C5. Materials and Methods
- L155 The words in the picture are not clear enough, and the picture is distorted. Please add clear pictures, the first letters of the first two words in the abscissa of the picture need to be capitalized.
- Done. Please see the new figure 1.
- Error bars should be added to all charts or descriptions should be added to the results. At the same time, all statistical methods should be added.
Here dear reviewer we represented the total cumulated rain during each month, we have no error bars, just we represent rainfall and temperature data in chart graph.We does not done any statistical analysis.
- “equivalent to 30, 60 and 100 units ha-1 (i.e. N-30, N-60 and N-100)” Please check whether the format is correct and delete the spaces.
- Done. Please see L 197
- L131-139 The information in Table 1 need not be described repeatedly.
Yes we agree with you and we confirm that we described soil only in this passage without replication in any section.
- Please note the format in Table 1, and what mean the experimental site?
- Done. Please see L. (However experimental site mean our field experiment plot that represent the site study area). Please see all table formats
- The meteorological information in Table 1 does not indicate the unit.
- Done. Please see title of table 1
- L228, 230, 240, 249, 265, 273. Please keep the formula and formula number format consistent.
- Done. Please see the new formula from 1 to 6
- L131 "show" should be written as "shows", and this mistake appears several times in the article, please correct.all
Done. Please see all “show” words that were corrected in all section of the text.
- L135 "shows also" should read "also shows", and this mistake appears several times in the article, please correct.
- Done. Please see L143
- In table 1, "Sand" and " (%) " are not on one L.
For me, there are in the same line, may it was decaled from you text. Please check it now after modification of table 1 format
- L146 punctuation is erroring.
- Done. Please so the new punctuation
- L173 there is a redundant space before "30".
- Done. Space was deleted
- L178 "desighn" is spelling mistake.
- Done. Please see L201
- L179 the first letter of "practice" is not capitalized.
- Done. (her we have an mistake in “.” That was deleted now and practice is not capitalized).
- L185 date formatting error.
- Done. Please see L215-216
- In 2.4 the format of the serial number after each formula is inconsistent.
- Done. Please see all new formula corrected
- L171 wheat and chickpea variety names should be in italics.
- Done. Please see L194
- L 278 “grain yield (FY)”should be changed “grain yield (GY)”.
- Done. Please see L319
- The month format of the horizontal coordinates in Figure 1 is inconsistent, with some initials capitalised and some not. Also, try not to use similar colours, they are not easily distinguishable.
- Done. Please see the new update figure 1
- L183, the spacing of the crop is not written in the article, please add it.
- Done. Please see L209
- L183, crop sowing time is lacking in the article, please add.
- Done. Please see L215
- L189, "Plant and soil sampling and measurement" would be better written as "Plant, soil sampling and measurement".
- Done. Please see L218
- L192, add the specific method for soil sampling.
- Done. Please see L221-223
- L241, which crops are represented by "a" and "b" is not described in the article.
It not necessary to fix a and b , for example in our application a is wheat and b is chickpea. The important is just to respect the formula and to respect the two ratio that were summed. We must devised Intercropping yield of the first species on their respective yield in monoculture and then we do the same for the second species and finaly we need make the sum of these two reports.
- L168: there is a missing “.”.
- Done.
- There is a lack of information about fertilization, how many times a growing season and how much fertilizer to apply.
- Done. We agree with you dear reviewer, thanks for this key comment. To better clarify N application, we added the folling sentence : “N-application was applied with urea (46-0-0) during two periods of the cropping cycle. The first N-supply was applied at the beginning of durum wheat tillering (30 units/ha-1 was applied for each N-level treatment), while the second one was applied at beginning of stem elongation (0, 30 and 70 units/ha-1 were applied respectively for N-30, N-60, and N-100 doses)”. Please see L210-215
- L166–167: check the correct spelling of “treatment”.
- Done. Please see all treatments spelling that were checked in al text
- L197: capitalize the first letter of “the”.
- Done. Please see L221
C6. Result
- “(table2)” Spaces should be added in the middle.
- Done. Please see L341
- L290-292. Please reconsider this sentence, LAI in 2022 is affected by N level ( P = 0. 02
- I not understand this comment?
- The format of Table 2, 3, 4 should be unified as far as possible.
- Done. All table formats were unified. Please see table 1, 2, 3, 4
- L366. The information of WUEYB is not shown in Table 4.
- Done. Yes off-course. We deleted WUEYB from the title of table 4. Please see title of table 4.
- Please describe Figure 3 in detail for reading.
Done. Figure 3 quality was improved and also the description was well corrected. In this context we given the definition and objective of figure 3, then we indicated all positive and significant correlation and finally we described the equation in which the correlation was significant. Please see the new figure and corrected description.
- L307, the concept of LAI is not correct.
I not understand this comment? Which cocept?
- In table 2, the table text format is different from other tables.
Done. All table formats were unified. Please see table 1 to 5.
- L333 and 335, punctuation is erroring.
- Done.
- L383, punctuation is superfluous.
- Done. The sentence was checked. Please see the new sentence
- L399-401, punctuation are erroring.
- Done.
- L404 and 424, "Figure" and "Fig" are not in the same format, please standardise.
- Done. We standardized figure writing in all the text. Please see all figure words.
- L426, "system"should be written as "systems".
- Done. Please see L 439
- L427, "WUEGYby" should read "WUEGY by".
- Done.
- L294, missing punctuation, ‘However’ should insert ‘,’.
- Done. All punctuations were added after however in all text section
- L412, ‘Regardless’ should insert ‘of’.
- Done. Here we reformulated all sentence
- L294, when “however” precedes the sentence, it should be separated by commas.
- Done.
- L412, “Regardless” should read “Regardless of ”.
Done.
- L303-304,“Thus, passing from N-30 to N-60 dose, mixed chickpea-durum wheat GY was increased by +1.04, +0.24, +0.22 and +0.74 t ha-1”should be changed “Thus, passing from N-30 to N-60 dose, mixed chickpea-durum wheat GY was increased by +0.81, +0.24, +0.22 and +0.74 t ha-1”.It is recommended to check prerequisite is N-30 to N-60 carefully.
Done. Thanks for correction +1.04 replaced by 0.81. the three value were checked. Please see L
- L305-306,“However, from N-30 to N-100 dose, it was significantly increased only in 2020 (+1.49 t ha-1) cropping season. ”This sentence is wrong.It should be changed “However, from N-60 to N-100 dose, it was significantly increased only in 2020 (+1.49 t ha-1) cropping season. ”or “However, from N-30 to N-100 dose, it was significantly increased only in 2020 (+1.71 t ha-1) cropping season.”
Done. Thanks for correction. Modification was reported in the text. Please see L349 also L352
- L328,“increased by 57 and 143 kg ha-1”should be changed “increased by 57 and 143 kg ha-1”The data here does not agree with the calculated data in the table 3.
Done. Thanks for correction. 143 was replaced by the true value (133). Modification was reported in the text. Please see L381
- L340,“NUE by 0.002”should be changed “NUE by 0.02”.The data in this paper has been inconsistent with that in the table for many times ,so it is suggested to check and modify the data in the whole paper again.
Done. We checked all increase and decrease in all tables and their correspondence in the text. Please see L400
- Table 4 “WU (m3 ha) ”should be changed “WU (m3 ha-1)”.
Done. Please see table 4
- L297, "high N-application" is for which years, please explain in the article.
Done. We mean N60 (moderate) and N100 (high) application. This was explained in text. Please see L196-197
- L299, 2022 N application level also had a non-significant effect on durum wheat grain yield.
Done. Yes we mentioned this in 2022 and 2020. Modification was reported in the text. Please see L346
- Table 2, "GY (t ha-1)" is not centred.
Done. All tables’ formats were checked unified and corrected. Please see Table 2.
- Table 2: whether the expression "0. ≤ 0.01" is correct.
Done. Thanks this is a mistake. The error is corrected. Please see Table 2.
- L327, the expressions "N100" and "N-100" are inconsistent.
Done.
- L340, "Increasing N-application from N-30 to N-100 decreased gradually NUE by 0.002, 1.13 and 0.48 kg kg-1 in chickpea monoculture, and by 0.24, 0.15 and 1.09 kg kg-1 in durum wheat monoculture" is unclear as to which specific years are represented in the article.
Done. We agree with you dear reviewer. The respective growing seasons were mentioned. Please see L401-406
- L355, it is not clear what is meant by "175 m3 and 33 m3".
Done. We mean for example 175 m3 ha-1. Ha-1 was added in all WU values in the text. Please see L415 and L416
- L395, is the statement "19,1,12%" correct.
Yes, this mean that intercropping advantage in terms of biomass was 19%, 1% and 12% respectively for N-30, N-60 and N-100.
- The letters in the analysis of variance (ANOVA) in Figure 2 are incorrectly indicated; please correct them.
Here dear reviewer I inform you that Tuekey test was performed among all N-level×growing season treatments for each NNI (harvest or flowering) and each cropping system, so the classification of our each 12 groups (12 treatments) was done together because our two ANOVA factor are N-level and GS. Thus, for example for groups of NNI flowering for wheat crop, you must read the 12 letters together that are noted for the 3 N-level.
- L312–313: the analysis for GY is not consistent with the contents of Table 2.
Done. We corrected all the text section that was dedicated for GY interpretation. Please see the new corrected interpretation of GY.
- L316: what is “GW”?
Done. It was an error, we want said GS (growing season. This was corrected in the text.
- L322: delete “only”.
Done.
- How much low, medium and high nitrogen fertilizer should I apply? Please make it clear in the experiment design.
Done. Low: N-30, Medium: N-60 and High: N-100. This was introduced in the text at material and method section. Please see L196-197
- L338–339: the analysis does not match the data in Table 3.
Done. All interpretation of table 3 was checked and corrected carefully. Please see the new interpretation of table 3
- L342–343: which processing does the content refer to?
Done. This was in intercropping . We mentioned this in the text. Please see L403
- L344–347: To which processing is this content compared?
As compared to the previous change. This mean as compared to the previous increase in 2022 and 2020.
- Comparisons between treatments should make better use of the percentage format.
We prefer percentage in the case of NNI and LER because these indices are considered as indicators of intercropping advantage.
- Multiple data varied widely across growing seasons and must be reflected in the analysis and discussed in the discussion.
Done. We mentioned all data variation among growing season when the significant test are confirmed. Please see all checked interpretation results section.
C7. Discussion
- It is suggested that this part can be divided into several sections.
We want to make it in the same part to better link our findings that are in relation. So we prefer to discuss our results together for more clarification.
- L452, punctuation is erroring
Done.
.119. L464, there is a redundant space before "Application".
Done. Space was deleted
- L467, ‘finding’ should read ‘findings’.
Done. Please see L566
- L485, ‘lead’ should read ‘leads’.
Done. Please see L588
- L492, ‘Regardless NNI’ should insert ‘of’.
Done. Please see L585
- L464, do not separate commas before “Application”.
Done.
- L467, “finding” should read “findings”.
Done. Please see L (you repeated this comment as in 120)
- L469-471,“Regardless durum wheat monoculture, no relationships was found between water and N supply and their interactions in yield and protein content under limited precipitation over growth period”，the validity of this statement is up for debate.
Done. We underline you dear reviewer that after our correction of material section and with the improvement of our precipitation of the climate analysis, now this sentence is well debated according to our climatic data. Indeed, our correlation analysis that was significant in durum wheat was not associated with increase in protein content when growing season is characterized limited precipitation. Please see the new description of year’s climatic conditions.
- Ls 499-501,“The novel findings in this field research make it possible to define relationships between WUE and NUE over wide range of rain-fed and N-application conditions in semi-arid regions (Fig. 3)”however,figure 3 shows that Water use efficiency (WUE) versus nitrogen use efficiency (NUE) for chickpea and durum.so figure 3 does not confirm this statement.
Here dear reviewer we said jus “We define the possible relationship: Just we define a relationship and we did not said that it was positive or negative, significant…etc” , just we give the general focus. After this sentence we said that the positive relation. However, we underline you that the for chickpea ok, no relationship was found, but for durum wheat our results confirm the significant correlation between WUE and NUE
- L442, please cite the relevant literature to support the experimental results.
Here, we give just a bref reminder in our major results in terms of growth and yield parameters, so we did not justify by reference. However just after the references from the literature were given in relation with our results.
- L481, Intercropping chickpea with durum wheat may lead to competition for water and N fertiliser between crops, please discuss.
Done. The discussion was amended. Please see L580-583
- L492, citing relevant literature to validate the results of this study.
Done. Please see the new discussion
- L499, compared to monocropping, crop growth status and LER for intercropping systems are not discussed in the article, please discuss.
Done. Please see L522-525
- There is too much variation between years in the analysis of results, but this is not discussed in the discussion, please add. In addition, the discussion is not in-depth enough.
Done. Variation between years in the analysis of results in discussion. Please see L 571 to 600
C8. Conclusions
- L531, ‘crop’ should read ‘crops’, delete ‘the’.
Done. Please see L629
- L535, ‘another’ should read ‘other’.
Done. Please see L641
- L492, “Regardless NNI” should insert “of”.
Done.
- The conclusions are not focused enough on the results and the language is too cumbersome, please be concise.
Done. The language was reformulated in conclusion and in all the text section. Please see language improvement in conclusion section.
- There are fewer references in the discussion.
Done, we added 2 references in discussion, however we are sure that there are a little references in the literature that are in line with our objectives study.
- The discussion is not deep enough and lacks organization.
Dear reviewer, In our discussion we have four clear sub-sections, in which we started by a reminder of the most finding in terms of growth and yield parameters and then we compared our results with the literature and we try to suggest some changes of these indicators. In second time, we show and we discussed the main indicators of our study (NUE and WUE) and their variation among climate years variation. Then we linked the changes of these lest two indicators with the growth and yield of our studied intercropping. After, we passed to identify and to discuss the relationship between NUE and WUR and their effect on yield quality and quantity and growth. Finaly we cited the principal novetely and perspective of our study. See the added and new reformulation sentence in discussion
- Discussions of crop growth and yield-related elements, as well as large inter-annual data variation, are missing from the discussion.
Done. We make some added discussion in terms of growth and yield in discussion. Please see discussion section. See the added and new reformulation sentence in discussion L 571 to 600
- The conclusion section is not sufficiently focused.
We try to focus more in conclusion with the citing of the major results and the perspective. May be within the new formulation, it is now more clear.
C9. References
- Please check whether the corner marks in the references are correct.
Done. See new correction of references list
- The format of references should be consistent with the requirements of journals.
Done. We standardized all formats of references (e.g. journal in itally,…) as the agriculture journal recommendation. Please see the new list of references.
- There are also many problems in the reference, such as error in final sequence serial numbers, doi missing in some articles and missing page numbers.
Done. All DOI are now completed and corrected. Please see the new list of references.
- L673–674: Delete these two blank lines.
Done. The two blank references were deleted from the list. Please see the new list of references.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.docx
Reviewer 2 Report
The paper is interesing and provides the reader with research results obtained from various expeirments. In general the paper should be acceptable, however there are some points where it should be improved.
The first is the title of the paper. It is too long and giving information on conditions that are not evaluated (Mediterranen). Try to cut that shorter and focus only on the subject.
The other is the use of keywords. It is not clear for the reviewer what is the exact definition of growth period and growing period? Also, such items like "positive interaction" do not give any information. At the same time one of the main topics - N supply - in not included. Try to reshape the set of keywords.
The paper is following a fashionable but very bad prctice using millions of three letter abbreviations - ABC, DEF, etc. Such abbreviations are acceptable in places where there is no room for longer definitions like captions of thables or graphs, but absolutely confusing along the text. Use proper and full definitions wherever possible.
The quality of tables and figures is to be improved. Some of them are of rather poor design, and there are some which condense more information than requested. In such cases reshape or separate the tables and figures.
Regarding the results there is no "principal novelty" in the paper. It is a good, reliable and so - valuable experiment with an evergreen outcome. It is not a shame not to invent the warm water once again, however any data suitable to support earlier findings should be welcome. Try to reshape the discussion in accordance with that.
The paper would need a thorough grammatical revision and improvement. "Threatments" that are "rondomized" and such words and phrases provide a threat to all readers.
Author Response
Reviewer 1
Comments and Suggestions for Authors
Comment 1 (C1): The paper is interesing and provides the reader with research results obtained from various expeirments. In general the paper should be acceptable, however there are some points where it should be improved.
Response (R) 1: Thanks you very much for your support and encouragement, we were working on all your valuable comments to improve our manuscript and we specially work hard on English correction in all section of manuscript to better response on your last recommendation.
C2: The first is the title of the paper. It is too long and giving information on conditions that are not evaluated (Mediterranen). Try to cut that shorter and focus only on the subject.
R2: Done. The Mediterranean and semiarid condition was deleted from the title. Modification was reported in the title. Please see the new title.
C3: The other is the use of keywords. It is not clear for the reviewer what is the exact definition of growth period and growing period? Also, such items like "positive interaction" do not give any information. At the same time one of the main topics - N supply - in not included. Try to reshape the set of keywords.
R3: Done. Thanks dear reviewer, we have just make an error we want said in the second keyword « Growing season» and not « growing period ». However, Growth period is relative to growth phenological stage. Modification was repported in the text. Please see L38
C4: The paper is following a fashionable but very bad prctice using millions of three letter abbreviations - ABC, DEF, etc. Such abbreviations are acceptable in places where there is no room for longer definitions like captions of thables or graphs, but absolutely confusing along the text. Use proper and full definitions wherever possible.
R4: Done. We agreer with your for some abreveations, as exemple PRT and GS that were replaced by protein yield and growing season, respectively, so these abreveation were replaced by there propre definition in all text sections. However for the others abreveation we prefere to let them as we mentionned because there are considered as THE INTERNATIONAL ABREVEATION and which are commonly used in the text by all world authors; such as DAS, LAI, NUE, NNI, LER….etc. Modification was repported in the text. Please see these modified abbreviations in all section of the text.
C5: The quality of tables and figures is to be improved. Some of them are of rather poor design, and there are some which condense more information than requested. In such cases reshape or separate the tables and figures.
R5: Dear reviewer, our tables and figure represent a lot of information since we performed 4 years of experiment and 3 level of N-fertilizers. So, we try to represent the same trend of indicators togother. However, the number of both figures and tables is in maximum of the recommendation of the journal agriculture and in particular we want to put the simular parameters together in the same table because there are linked in terms of agronomique, ecophysiological and water balance indicators.
C6: Regarding the results there is no "principal novelty" in the paper. It is a good, reliable and so - valuable experiment with an evergreen outcome. It is not a shame not to invent the warm water once again, however any data suitable to support earlier findings should be welcome. Try to reshape the discussion in accordance with that.
R6: Done. We deleted all sentence that mentionned « novetly » from discussion and conclusion section. Modifications were reported in the text. Please see L537, L575, and L586. However we want to underline you dear reviewer that in both old and recent literature, there are no study that highlighted the evaluation of simultanious changes in WUE and NUE in the case of intercropping system. While this was only studied among litle researches for monoculture. So, for this we mention our novetly which lead to make our study as the first one in this context.
C7: The paper would need a thorough grammatical revision and improvement."Threatments" that are "rondomized" and such words and phrases provide a threat to all readers.
R7: Done. The English was improved in all sections of manuscript by a native speaker. All modifications were highlighted within red collar in the text. Please see the version of re-submitted paper within track changes (supplementary materials)
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Reviewer 3 Report
This manuscript explains the results of 4-year experiments in chickpea, durum wheat and an intercropping of both in terms of WUE, NUE, their relationship and other significant variables. The paper is interesting but there are a few problems in the methodology that need to be clarified or corrected before the document is accepted for publication:
1) The experimental design specifies that there are plots and sub-plots but it is not clear what this means, because the authors state that the design is a randomised complete block, which do not include the sub-plot option in it. I think it is necessary to include a layout of the experimental design (as supplementary material) to check if it is truly a randomised complete block or a split-plot design, which is common in fertiliser experiments. The split-plot design requires of different statistical analysis. Also the individual plot size should be specified.
2) The NUE formula does not contain all the terms necessary for nitrogen use efficiency calculation. The article 44 clearly states that an estimation of nitrogen deposition, fixation and losses should be accounted for, but the authors do not include those terms in their calculations according to formula 6 (line273). This is very strange because in the material and methods it is specified that they measured nitrogen in the soil several times during the experiments. Because of the chickpea presence in the experiments, the fixation of nitrogen cannot be neglected. The losses may also be important some months according to the irregular rainfall patterns shown in figure 1. This is an important point due to the pivotal role of NUE in this manuscript.
Other minor aspects:
a) "Grain protein content" is usually the proportion of protein in grains, and expressed as %. For their PRT variable I think the expression "protein yield" would be more appropriate.
b) Table 1 has two parts, which makes it a little confusing, especially for the climate characteristics. I think the meteorological and climate variables deserve a separated table with a different organization, because the weather has an important role in the results and the discussion.
c) Following table 1 (lines 145-148) there is some sort of discussion about the climate change that should be moved to the discussion section.
d) Figure 1 contains data from November to June but then the authors say that the grown period is from January to April. Therefore the figure should contain the data from January to April. On the other hand, if the crop is sown in November and harvested in June, the mention of the growth period should be eliminated or changed to clarified.
e) Temperatures in Figure 1 would be better represented by lines.
-End of comments-
Author Response
Reviewer 2
Comments and Suggestions for Authors
C.1. This manuscript explains the results of 4-year experiments in chickpea, durum wheat and an intercropping of both in terms of WUE, NUE, their relationship and other significant variables. The paper is interesting but there are a few problems in the methodology that need to be clarified or corrected before the document is accepted for publication:
R1: Thanks for your valuables comments, we try to report all recommandations and explantation requested in your review.
C2. The experimental design specifies that there are plots and sub-plots but it is not clear what this means, because the authors state that the design is a randomised complete block, which do not include the sub-plot option in it. I think it is necessary to include a layout of the experimental design (as supplementary material) to check if it is truly a randomised complete block or a split-plot design, which is common in fertiliser experiments. The split-plot design requires of different statistical analysis. Also the individual plot size should be specified.
R2: Dear reviewer, Yes we performed the RCB design, and not split plot, where we said plot and sub-plot we mean PLOT field (all area of experiment), while the sub-plot define the experimental unit in which our treatments are included (crop-syst*N-fertilizer level). So, our plot was divided on 9 sub-plots (3 N level * 3 cropping system). These terms are commonly used to describe any experimental design in farmer plot experiments. Indeed we selected RCB deseign to better control variation in an field experiment by accounting for spatial effects in fermer field (slop). Please see in below the experimental design.
Experimental design : W: wheat monoculture, C: Chickpea monoculture, MC: Mixed crop
C3. The NUE formula does not contain all the terms necessary for nitrogen use efficiency calculation. The article 44 clearly states that an estimation of nitrogen deposition, fixation and losses should be accounted for, but the authors do not include those terms in their calculations according to formula 6 (line273). This is very strange because in the material and methods it is specified that they measured nitrogen in the soil several times during the experiments. Because of the chickpea presence in the experiments, the fixation of nitrogen cannot be neglected. The losses may also be important some months according to the irregular rainfall patterns shown in figure 1. This is an important point due to the pivotal role of NUE in this manuscript.
R3: We agreer with use in the context of general definition of NUE (in which we take N loss, N available in soil…etc), however, we well underline which NUE we calculated in our study (NUE crop). We calculated NUE which represent the fraction of fertilizer N that is utilized and allocated to relative yield N, this calculation was reported in the literature as the ration between N uptake by grain yield and N-applied trough fertilization. The calculation of this type of NUE is commonly recommended in the study that evaluate the effect of N fertilization. Moreover, there are a lot of definition of NUE indicator and the choice of NUE may be linked to research hypothesis in each field study. According to the researchers reported by Van Eerd (2007) and Fixen et al. (2015), the multitude of NUE indices commonly used in agricultural research are categorized into groups by denominator, such as: fertilizer-based (which represent our focus and our case approach), plant-based, soil-based; also, by approach: isotope-based, or systems-based NUEs (please see the table in below). The intended research question dictate which NUE indices are selected and employed, but no NUE index is without weakness.
Yes offcourse, we measured N available in each cropping stages, while we did not calculated NUE within N-soil available approach because we noted that the amount of N available (NO3 and NH4) in the soil was very instable during cropping period due to irregular rainfall conditions in the region.
Other minor aspects :
C.4. "Grain protein content" is usually the proportion of protein in grains, and expressed as %. For their PRT variable I think the expression "protein yield" would be more appropriate.
R4: Done. We agreer with you dear reviewer. Protein content was replaced by « Protein yield » in all section of the text. Please see L370, L371, L375, L394…..etc
C.5. Table 1 has two parts, which makes it a little confusing, especially for the climate characteristics. I think the meteorological and climate variables deserve a separated table with a different organization, because the weather has an important role in the results and the discussion.
R5: Here, we are in obligation to regroupe the two data in once table because if we make them in two table we will pass to more than 8 results (more than the number recommended by journal). However another important result of climate (monthly rain and temperature distribution) was separately represented (figure 1).
C6. Following table 1 (lines 145-148) there is some sort of discussion about the climate change that should be moved to the discussion section.
R6: Done. This sentence was deleted from this section. Please see L146/156
C7. Figure 1 contains data from November to June but then the authors say that the grown period is from January to April. Therefore the figure should contain the data from January to April. On the other hand, if the crop is sown in November and harvested in June, the mention of the growth period should be eliminated or changed to clarified.
R7: Done. We agreer with you. So now we more clarified this sentence by more clarification. In facr, we mentionned data from November to June because this period represent our cropping cycle of both intercropped crop, however we focus in interpretation of these rain data on the periof from January to April because this period is relative to the main growth stages (tillering, booting, inflorescence emergence) of durum wheat. Modification was reported in the text. Please see the L175-178
C8. Temperatures in Figure 1 would be better represented by lines.
R8: We try to represent it by lines, however we found that it was not clear for interpretation and it was difficult to read due to the number of growing seasons. So dear reviewer we prefere to let histogram to better show the difference between growing seasons.
Table relative to R3
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
Thanks for revising the paper. I have checked the revision and I am satisfied with the changes you made to this manuscript.
Author Response
Thanks for your and for all your previous comment
Reviewer 3 Report
The paper has been improved with the revision and now it is ready to be published.
Author Response
Thaks you verry much for your previous comment and also for validation
