The Productivity of Crop Rotation Depending on the Included Plants and Soil Tillage

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Varied crop rotation is important for maintaining biodiversity in ecosystems and sustainability in agriculture. However, in many countries, especially with developed agriculture, there is an unfavorable trend of significant simplification of changes. A large share of cereals results, among others, from the possibility of mechanization of their cultivation. This significantly reduces the time spent on their cultivation. Another solution introduced in plant cultivation that saves time and fuel is the simplification of soil cultivation. The efficiency of crop rotations and the effectiveness of simplifications in tillage can be assessed using various indicators - yielding, economic efficiency, energy efficiency. That's why he thinks the research presented in the manuscript is interesting. The authors presented a lot of results and discussed them quite well. The subject matter of the manuscript fits the profile of the journal Agriculture. However, in my opinion, the manuscript needs significant corrections and additions.

The most important note about the methodology. I do not really see the justification for calculating the amount of energy obtained from different crop rotations or tillage without taking into account the energy inputs. Energy efficiency is, apart from economic efficiency, an important indicator for assessing plant production. Its advantage is the low volatility of indicators, while the economic efficiency can vary greatly depending on the prices of means of production and the purchase of agricultural products. Therefore, I believe that the authors should convert the expenditure into energy. There are adopted conversion factors for the energy value of mineral fertilizers, active substances of plant protection products, seed, fuel, human labour, etc. Only having the amount of energy obtained and the energy expenditure incurred to obtain it, energy efficiency can be assessed. Of course, this will also require changes in the chapters Introduction, Material and methods, Results, Discussion.

 

Other comments

1. line [96] - in CS?

2. I suggest using the BBCH scale to determine the development phases of plants

3. Line [151-153] - I suggest removing, there are no results of fat content in rape seeds in the paper. And the relationship between fat content and energy value is obvious.

4. Line [157] - Please describe this method. Saying that, ‘…using the standard method...’. is not enough.

5. Line [257-258] – ‘The average straw yield in the rotation with 25% wheat (8.66 t ha-1) was significantly higher (p<0.001) than that in the other two studied crop rotations (67% wheat – 6.49 t ha-1; 25% wheat – 7.21 t ha-1’. I guess there's an error here.

6. Line [294-295] - Please remove it. This statement is obvious.

7. Line [300-301] – is ‘..but, for example, the crude protein content, which affects the chemical composition of field bean seeds, was not significantly different..’ Protein results are not in the manuscript.

8. Line [302] – summer barley or spring?

9. The authors sometimes write Faba bean and sometimes field bean. Please unify it.

I have doubts about the presentation of the results in graphs 2 and maybe 5.

10. In the chapter 'Material and methods' it is stated that three crop rotations were tested, i.e: (W–W; 100% wheat), (OR–W–W; 67% wheat), (FB–W–OR–B; wheat proportion in rotation – 25%). And in chart 2 it is: W-W-OR-R, OR-W-W-OR and 67% wheat? Please consider whether it is better to give only one mean value for each crop rotation? It would be clearer and understandable for the reader. Of course, then you need to improve the description of the results.

Line [484-488] - The authors rightly write that long-term studies are needed to assess crop rotations. However, comparing the assessment of economic efficiency in the long term is difficult. In the article, the authors took into account the years 2017-2020 with low volatility of purchase prices of cereal seeds and rape. The volatility of the prices of means of production was probably also not large. But if we took into account the year 2022, when prices in many countries changed a lot, the results could be completely different. This is also worth mentioning in the article.

Author Response

Reply to Reviewer 1

Thank you for the detailed review of the article and suggestions for its improvement.

About suggestions for adding energy inputs in Energy calculation. The net energy calculation and also the energy efficiency was not the aim for this article. Calculations for energetic efficiency will be reported in another article. I have changed the name of results part from “energetic productivity” to “energy yield”, and also in other places in text. Thank you very much for comments about energetic efficiency, I would take it account for preparation of next article!
 

Other comments

1. line [96] - in CS? – thank you, right – CT , line [103].
2. I suggest using the BBCH scale to determine the development phases of plants – GS stages have been added in text, where it was possible for better text understanding.
3. Line [151-153] - I suggest removing, there are no results of fat content in rape seeds in the paper. And the relationship between fat content and energy value is obvious. Correlation between oilseed rape seeds energetic value and oil content in oilseed rape seeds was proved in this article. Also field bean protein content is mentioned in this article.
4. Line [157] - Please describe this method. Saying that, ‘…using the standard method...’. is not enough. The description of the method used has been supplemented, line [167-174].
5. Line [257-258] – ‘The average straw yield in the rotation with 25% wheat (8.66 t ha-1) was significantly higher (p<0.001) than that in the other two studied crop rotations (67% wheat – 6.49 t ha-1; 25% wheat – 7.21 t ha-1’. I guess there's an error here. Thank you, error in results resolved, line [275].
6. Line [294-295] - Please remove it. This statement is obvious. This is important for understanding the straw yield for other crops included, line [306-307].
7. Line [300-301] – is ‘..but, for example, the crude protein content, which affects the chemical composition of field bean seeds, was not significantly different..’ Protein results are not in the manuscript. Average protein content is added in manuscript (line [317-318]), and also in methodology, is mentioned how this measurments were made (line [163]).
8. Line [302] – summer barley or spring? Thank you, spring is correct.
9. The authors sometimes write Faba bean and sometimes field bean. Please unify it. - Done

I have doubts about the presentation of the results in graphs 2 and maybe 5.

10. In the chapter 'Material and methods' it is stated that three crop rotations were tested, i.e: (W–W; 100% wheat), (OR–W–W; 67% wheat), (FB–W–OR–B; wheat proportion in rotation – 25%). And in chart 2 it is: W-W-OR-R, OR-W-W-OR and 67% wheat? Please consider whether it is better to give only one mean value for each crop rotation? It would be clearer and understandable for the reader. Of course, then you need to improve the description of the results.
    As there were a lot of differences between the years and all of variants were not included in each year, then authors decided to show separately full length of rotation in four year period depending on included crops. The abbreviation of rotation “W-W-OR-R” is changed to right version “W-W-OR-W”.

Line [484-488] - The authors rightly write that long-term studies are needed to assess crop rotations. However, comparing the assessment of economic efficiency in the long term is difficult. In the article, the authors took into account the years 2017-2020 with low volatility of purchase prices of cereal seeds and rape. The volatility of the prices of means of production was probably also not large. But if we took into account the year 2022, when prices in many countries changed a lot, the results could be completely different. This is also worth mentioning in the article. Thank you – discussion have been added.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

I really appreciate the performance of the field experiment and the comprehensive approach to the studied topic. The long term experiment brings certain imperfections given by historical causes during the establishment, but the obtained long term results are very valuable and important.

Specific comments:

Introduction:

·       ·   Relatively scarce amount of sources

·      ·   Missing topics: Stability of crop yields, Regional food safety.

M+M

·    ·    Add GPS coordinates, basic pedological and climatic data

Results

·         ·    Table 2 a Table 3: units of measurement need to be added

Discussion

·         ·   Consider the citacion of source „29“ – The cited information is not in the article

 Conclusions

·   The large number of results encourages to formulate general conclusions. Please design the Conclusion chapter according to the stated objectives.

·   Remarks to English level:

Minor revisions required. Use of definite and indefinete articles should be revised in the Introduction part. Units of measurement should be expressed using a multiplication symbol „.“ (applies to all the used units of measurement e.g mg kg^-1 vs correctly mg.kg^-1) throughout the whole article. Line 82/83 should be rephrased e.g. Three different variants of crop rotation containing different wheat proportion were studied instead of Three different variants of crop rotation with different wheat proportion in it were studied.

Lines 107, 134 – incorrect formating of inedexes.

Figure 1, 2, 4, 5 – there is an extra comma in the axis y label that should be removed and replaced by parenthesis or check with editors if that style with comma is acceptable

Figure 4 – Number at the column describing spring barley at the Technical operations should be moved higher not to interfere with the content of the column.

Author Response

Reply to Reviewer 2

Specific comments:

Introduction:

• Relatively scarce amount of sources – the list of reference have been supplemented [7, 8, 9, 47, 48]
• Missing topics: Stability of crop yields, Regional food safety. – introduction have been supplemented with some references about stability of crop yields, line [37-43].

M+M

•  Add GPS coordinates, basic pedological and climatic data – coordinates (line [82]) and average climatic data (line [214-215]) for experimental place are added in manuscript. Pedological data is described in lines [99-102].

Results

•        ·   Table 2 a Table 3: units of measurement need to be added – measurements have been added.

Discussion

1. Consider the citation of source „29“ – The cited information is not in the article. Citation from abstract in original article: “The obtained results showed that the grain yield of winter wheat was statistically influenced not only by a year of cultivation, but also by the pre-crop … The importance of pea as a suitable pre-crop for winter wheat was confirmed as the grain yield was higher compared to winter wheat as a pre-crop by an average of 0.49 t/ha.” (Vrtilek, P.; Smutny, V.; Dryšlova, T.; Neudert, L.; Kren, J. The effect of agronomic measures on grain yield of winter wheat in drier conditions. Plant, Soil and Environment 2019, Vol. 65, No. 2, p. 63–70.° https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eja.2018.08.003 )

 Conclusions

•  The large number of results encourages to formulate general conclusions. Please design the Conclusion chapter according to the stated objectives. Conclusions are prepared and added to article.
•  Remarks to English level:

Minor revisions required. Use of definite and indefinete articles should be revised in the Introduction part. English have been checked by English redactor.

Units of measurement should be expressed using a multiplication symbol „.“ (applies to all the used units of measurement e.g mg kg^-1 vs correctly mg.kg^-1) throughout the whole article. According to the MDPI Agriculture's "Instructions for Authors" and "Paper Preparation Template", the multiplication symbol is not required for writing composite measurement units (e.g., g kg-1). Looking through the published articles, we cannot find such a record either. Always multiplication symbol is replaced by a space between the unit symbols, as in our case.

Line 82/83 should be rephrased e.g. Three different variants of crop rotation containing different wheat proportion were studied instead of Three different variants of crop rotation with different wheat proportion in it were studied. – thank you, a sentence have been change, now line [89-90].

Lines 107, 134 – incorrect formating of inedexes. – indexes have been corrected.

Figure 1, 2, 4, 5 – there is an extra comma in the axis y label that should be removed and replaced by parenthesis or check with editors if that style with comma is acceptable -  I think it is appropriate because  I have found this style also in other recent published articles in Journal Agriculture.

Figure 4 – Number at the column describing spring barley at the Technical operations should be moved higher not to interfere with the content of the column. – Done.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

The authors took into account most of the comments contained in the review. I still believe that the passages relating to the link between the energy value and the fat content (this is a known truth) in rape seeds and the protein content in faba bean seeds should be deleted. It doesn't add anything significant. Besides, why only the qualitative characteristics for these two species were included? What about other crops grown in rotations? This needs to be clarified in the methodology if authors choose not to make the suggested changes. Manuscrypt would be more interesting if the authors assessed the energy efficiency and not only the amount of energy obtained by combustion, using the method of assessing the energy value of fuels.

Author Response

Thank you for your comments and suggestions. The article have been improved, authors agreed that correlation between energetic value and seed quality parameters can be taken off. The lines [161-164] in materials and methods and lines [316-318] and [321-324]in results have been deleted.

Authors agree with reviewer that calculation of energy efficiency would be interesting, but this was not the aim for this specific article (line [76-78] “The objective of this research was to analyse soil tillage system and studied crop rotation influence on (1) yield of different field crops included in rotation, (2) the energy yield and (3) average economical profitability of variants over a four-year period”. The sequence of objects in aim were changed according to result description).
The method used for energy value determination of tested materials is widely used for different products, also for fuels and food.

Please see attachment with improved article.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx