Response of Quality and Yield of Foxtail Millet to Nitrogen and Zinc Application

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

I have read the manuscript and although the application of N, Zn and their combinationhas been found to increase plant yield and quality, but I think this article may be considered with major revision. You can follow some corrects I have been added to the manuscript file (attached) and I am giving you my suggestions as the follows:

1- The abstract should be rewritten indicating the treatments clearly. Readers should understand the whole manuscript from the abstract. And do not repeat the same meanings sentences.

2- The materials and methods part should be cleared accordingly. Furthermore, Why you did not mention any analysis for soil while you add nitrogen as soil addition. 

3- The statistical analysis for the data should be reconsidered. The split design should not be separated. that make your letters in the whole data are incorrect. 

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

The English language in the whole manuscript should be reconsidered. 

Author Response

Dear Editor and Reviewers,

We would like to thank the reviewers for carefully reading our manuscript. We appreciate the comments and suggestions. In the following,we include a point-by-point response to the comments from each reviewer. In the revised manuscript, all the changes have been highlighted in red. As for some grammar problems, we are polishing them. Please forgive us.

Point 1: We have revised the summary.

Point 2: We write nitrogen fertilizer and zinc fertilizer separately.

Point 3: We did not measure and soil related indicators, mainly we focused on the above ground portion of millet, to explore the effects of nitrogen and zinc combined application on the yield and quality of millet.

Point 4: 2.2 We have added soil total nitrogen, alkali-hydrolyzed nitrogen, available iron and available manganese, and applied zinc fertilizer once at booting stage.

Point 5: 2.3.1 The plant material is millet flour, and references have been added.

Point 6: 2.3.2 Cooked has been changed to heated and fixed to determined, and references have been added and methods of determination of protein components have been rewritten.

Point 7: Change 2.3.4 to skimmed millet.

Point 8: Reanalyzed the data from the year 2021 in section 3.1.

Point 9: Summarize the conclusion again in section 5.

Point 10: Regarding the statistical analysis of the data, due to our experimental partition design, the difference analysis under nitrogen and zinc levels can better analyze the effects of different fertilizers on millet.

 

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

Dear Editor and authors, the interaction between N and Zn is already well established in the current literature, as well as influences the variables analyzed in the study. In addition, there are already articles evaluating this interaction in Foxtail millet, so the authors need to clarify what their manuscript brings new in relation to the information already available in the literature. Some considerations are given below:

 

Abstract

- The presentation of data in the summary needs to be redone, it is confusing. Authors should highlight key results with an improvement in writing

 

Introduction

- Line 41: All nutrient is essential, thus the term is uncorrect, remove the essential or write essential element.

- The synergy between Zn and N should be better explored in the introduction to provide the basis for the article, for example, Zinc acts directly on protein synthesis, so consequently it can improve the assimilation of N by plants, the authors can give an overview of the metabolic pathway that one influences the other.

- At the end of the introduction the authors say “the impact of different application ratios remains unclear for quality and yield of foxtail millet”, this may be partly true for this crop, but this relationship is already well established in the literature, the authors should provide more information that justifies the hypothesis of the work and the aims.

 

Material and methods

- Line 93: the total Zn content is not very informative, the authors must include the levels available by some extractor already consolidated in the literature, as this guides whether the levels are at adequate levels or not.

-In the elemental analyzes as the authors ensured a good recovery of the elements, the authors must use some certified material to validate the digestion and extraction, please insert this data in the article to see the recovery rate of the evaluated nutrients.

-Why did the authors not use Zn dose 0, as a control without Zn application? Since they use the 0 dose of N, considering that N is required much more than Zn by the plant? – how can they isolate this effect from the absence of Zn application?

-More information regarding the soil used must be provided, such as texture and contents of other elements, as well as the total N content in the soil.

 

Results

- Figure 1: put more information in the legend, mainly on the comparison, if there was interaction between the studied factors, and how the comparison is made, if the comparisons of a factor are being taken into account the levels of the other factor, since the authors authors use split-plot design. The letter p referring to the p-value is lowercase.

- Figure 2: Each of the statistical bases in the figures to make the comparison since in the results the authors indicate these differences, another point is that the lines in the figure are wrong, because the treatments have no connection with each other, so the use of lines is an error that induces false inferences to the reader. Several pieces of information are missing in the legend, see figure 1.

- Figure 3 and 4, table 1 and 2: Several pieces of information are missing, see figure 1 and 2

-Figure 4: error in the use of lines as in figure 2

- In the principal component analysis, the authors need to plot the biplot graph, to see the relationship of the variables and, in addition, to support the information of the mentioned treatments, the way that the information is inserted is not very informative.

 

Discussion

- More information should be given on the chemical, biochemical and physiological mechanisms in which N and Zn interact and how they affect the analyzed variables, as the introduction is superficial as it was written. Furthermore, little new information was gained in this study.

Author Response

Dear Editor and Reviewers,

We would like to thank the reviewers for carefully reading our manuscript. We appreciate the comments and suggestions. In the following,we include a point-by-point response to the comments from each reviewer. In the revised manuscript, all the changes have been highlighted in red. As for some grammar problems, we are polishing them. Please forgive us.

Abstract

 We have revised the abstract of the article.

Introduction

In line 41 of the paper, we have changed the essential element to the basic element, the synergistic effect between nitrogen and zinc has been deeply discussed, and the assumptions and objectives of the paper have been modified accordingly.

Material and methods

On the question of zinc content, we have made corresponding additions in the preface. The contents of total nitrogen, alkali-hydrolyzed nitrogen, available iron and available manganese were also added. For those without Zn0 application, zinc fertilizer is used as micro fertilizer, usually combined with other conventional fertilizers, as a nutrient, and this experimental design is designed on the basis of previous studies.

Results

In Figure 1, Figure 2, Figure 3, Table 1 and Table 2, we have added legends for detailed explanation. The lines in Figures 2 and 4 have been removed. Principal component analysis, because the amount of data we have is too small to plot a double plot.

Discussion

In the discussion section, we have added the chemical, biochemical and physiological mechanisms of nitrogen-zinc interaction, and analyzed the experimental results.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

Accept in present form

Reviewer 2 Report

The manuscript was improved and can be accepted in the current form.