Analysis of the Available Straw Nutrient Resources and Substitution of Chemical Fertilizers with Straw Returned Directly to the Field in China
and Yajing Wang *
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report (New Reviewer)
Manuscript "Analysis of the available straw nutrient resources and substitution of chemical fertilizers with straw returned directly to the field in China" describes about possible substitute of synthetic fertilisers. In present scenario of economic crises, the topic has much importance.
Introduction of paper is written well describing the background of study.
Materials and methods are fine.
Results and discussion need to be improved particularly english writeup.
Conclusion must be of a short para, describing key points/results.
Author Response
Dear Reviewer
Thank you for your valuable comments and suggestions on our manuscript.
Please find our response as follows:
Response to Reviewer 1 Comments
Author Response File: 
Author Response.docx
Reviewer 2 Report (New Reviewer)
Dear editor:
I have carefully read the manuscript entitled “Analysis of the available straw nutrient resources and substitution of chemical fertilizers with straw returned directly to the field in China”. From my point of view, the current study is interesting, however, it has a very local approach, applied to the very particular conditions of China. Since variations in crop straw return to soil in different regions of the world depend on many factors such as climatic conditions, soil management practices, soil types, type of crop, etc. I do not consider its publication in Agriculture to be relevant.
Author Response
Dear Reviewer
Thank you for your valuable comments on our manuscript.
Please find our response as follows:
Response to Reviewer 2 Comments
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Reviewer 3 Report (New Reviewer)
The topic is interesting to study the main nutrient composition of straw returned directly to the fields and the possible replacement of straw by chemical fertilizers.
Two minor requirements
Line 143-144 and Table 2, nutrient release rate calculations should be described in detail.
Figure 8, improve the fonts for the axis and the legends.
Author Response
Dear Reviewer
Thank you for your valuable comments and suggestions on our manuscript.
Please find our response as follows:
Response to Reviewer 3 Comments
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Reviewer 4 Report (New Reviewer)
Review
of the Manuscript ID: agriculture-2336582
Title: Analysis of the available straw nutrient resources and substitution of chemical fertilizers with straw returned directly to the field in China.
Authors: Jingmiao Shao , Chunyu Gao , Patience Afi Seglah , Jie Xie , Li Zhao , Yuyun Bi , Yajing Wang
Unfortunately, the analysis undertaken by the authors contains a number of errors and shortcomings, which I have marked in the pdf version of the manuscript.
The manuscript requires many corrections, which I hope will significantly help in improving the quality of the work.
Authors, in particular, must pay attention to the future recipient. This paper deals primarily with the situation in China and therefore should be published in a national rather than an international journal. However, if the authors decide to publish in an international journal, they must take into account the fact that the reader will be interested in what is happening in the world, not only in China. Of course, the issue is important from the point of view of carbon sequestration, which, thanks to the return of straw to the field, will be much greater than if the straw is taken out of the field with the crop.
If the authors mention available nutrient resources in the title, they should provide the resources of these ingredients in accessible forms. It is not enough to mathematically calculate the amount of ingredients brought in with the straw. Such data can be estimated on the basis of soil analysis! The authors did provide the In-season nutrient release rate of straw in Table 2, but it is not known what these numbers mean? Are they % or kg from 1ha?
Besides, available nutrient resources are not only N,P,K but also other important ingredients!
The amount of straw yield in the country (China) scale should be given in Tg and not 517 mt!. What mt unit is this?
Please convert million tons to SI units: 1 million metric tons = 1 Tg
Please don't use mt as it a unit. It's misleading to the reader! 1 mt is 1 million, that's equal to 1kg, right?
Row 41: I wonder where in the authors' considerations there is the straw that was collected from the fields and used in animal husbandry and then returned to the fields in the form of manure. Do the authors treat manure as an external source of nutrients for plants?
Would it be a good idea to provide some information on the straw returned to the field as manure?
Row 89: Is 15 cm stubble such a significant source of nutrients for plants? Of course, the annual resource of such stubble portion of crops left upright in the field can generally reach about 100 million tons nationwide, worldwide much higher! It depends on the scale, seems to me, this part of the considerations taken by the authors is unnecessary, precisely because of the scale. There was always a stubble on the surface of the field and it was always a source of nutrients for future plants.
15 cm is really significant amount? Did you calculate the amount of N,P,K, and other nutrients derived from stubble?
Row 131: It is not known for what period the data was provided! Please specify for what period the statistics were provided. last decade? Last 25 years? Last 5 years?
Row 141: Please enter a unit! kg ha-1, % of nutrients contained in the straw?
Row 164 and others: How can you do these calculations without specifying units? i.e. Mt is the amount of straws directly returned to the field [kg ha-1], WPij is the crop yield of the j-th crop in the i-th province (city, autonomous region) [kg ha-1]... etc.
Row 202: Please add (producer of software name, producer city, producer country)
Row 231: Four thousands and forty-five kg per hectare???
Row 267: Please unify the units. If you use Tg then consistently use Tg until the end of the manuscript, OK? 4×105 t=400,000 t = 400,000,000 kg = 0.4 Tg
I finished reviewing the work on line 267. The work requires serious checking in terms of the reported values!
Regards
Reviewer
Comments for author File: 
Comments.pdf
Author Response
Dear Reviewer
Thank you for your valuable comments and suggestions on our manuscript.
Please find our response as follows:
Response to Reviewer 4 Comments
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Round 2
Reviewer 2 Report (New Reviewer)
Dear editor,
My opinion is the same as in the first round of reviews. Although the manuscript is interesting, its focus seems too local to me. Therefore, I leave it to your consideration whether to publish it in the Agriculture journal.
Author Response
Dear Reviewer,
The authors would like to extend our deepest gratitude for reviewing the manuscript despite your busy schedule. We appreciate your candid assessment of the manuscript and your flexibility regarding the journal's potential consideration of the paper.
Thank you once again for your time and kind consideration.
Respectfully!
Reviewer 4 Report (New Reviewer)
Review
of the Manuscript ID: agriculture-2336582
Title: Analysis of the available straw nutrient resources and substitution of chemical fertilizers with straw returned directly to the field in China.
Authors: Jingmiao Shao , Chunyu Gao , Patience Afi Seglah , Jie Xie , Li Zhao , Yuyun Bi , Yajing Wang
Most of my comments have been taken into account by the authors.
I suggest that the notation of the type: kg/ha be replaced with the notation kg ha-1 as it is used in MDPI.
The manuscript in its current form may be published in MDPI Journal - Agriculture, subject to the above remark.
Regards
Reviewer
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
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
Consider carefully the following comments:
-Title: In this study, you mentioned that returning straw to soil has some positive consequences, but if straw is returned to soil, it could have negative impacts, such as reducing crop germination rates, increasing the risk of crop diseases and pests, and accumulating soil heavy metals. Please explain.
-Introduction: Long introduction. Summarize this section.
-Lines 62-95: Present basic data to summarize this section.
-Materials and Methods: Explain how the statistical analysis was conducted and what software was used.
-Line 159: There should be a description of the soil's physicochemical properties.
-Results, lines 236-238: Let us know what you think about the differences between the Northeast and the South regions.
-Conclusion: Describe the most important outcome of your work in the Conclusion section. Instead of summarizing your findings in the body, interpret them at a higher abstraction level.
Comments for author File: Comments.pdf
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Reviewer 2 Report
Comments on agriculture-2233994
This manuscript presents a potentially interesting and significant question, that is to assessed the effective nutrient resources and fertilizer substitution potential of major crop straws at the national scale based on the seasonal nutrient release rates of different crops. The authors fail to present the importance of the study depending on available data. The introduction has lack of flow. In the materials and method section, the authors selected 31 provinces, cities, and autonomous regions of China, with different climatic and edaphic conditions, also it is confusing, what the authors achieved in the results section from these sites. The readers cannot understand what exactly done with this study and what have been achieved from the results. Therefore, I am not agreeing with this paper to publish in this journal.
Author Response
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Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Reviewer 3 Report
The manuscript with title "Analysis of the available straw nutrient resources and substitution of chemical fertilizers with straw returned directly to the field in China" is writing about the main nutrient composition of straws returned to soils and the potential substitution of straw for chemical fertilizers in China. The topic is interesting. However, some parts are not good organized, could not be good understood, and the English need to be improved. The manuscript should be written carefully and correctly. The following questions may improve the quality of the paper:
1. Line 13-14 Please rewrite this sentence.
2. Line 20 Why you used the N, P2O5 and K2O content in straw to examine the straw nutrient resource?
3. Line 31 Please revised the keyword of “straws directly returned to fields”.
4. Line 158 major agricultural?
5. Line 166 Nutrient content?
6. Line 373-377 it is too long sentence and difficult to read.
7. Please revise your reference in text and reference list following the journal format.
8. It is better to show a chart to for the summary of your results!!!
Author Response
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Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Round 2
Reviewer 2 Report
No more comments
