Grain Yield, Rice Seedlings and Transplanting Quantity in Response to Decreased Sowing Rate under Precision Drill Sowing

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report (Previous Reviewer 1)

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Thank you so much indeed to the authors for the excellent revision. I think that the paper is definitely improved than the previous version. However, I would like to point out to the authors some other points of the manuscript that I think should be addressed. Please find below my comments and suggestions.

 

·       Figure 2. I advise the authors to put some arrows or something similar in the figure to help the readers understand the succession of the operations performed

·       Line 105. Please rewrite. “A completely randomized block design was arranged” instead of “A completely randomized block design were arranged”. The letter t in the word “transplanting” should be in lowercase.

·       Line 106. Could you please specify what you mean by a leaf age of 3.5?

·       Line 116. I kindly advise the authors to specify the number of plots per treatment

·       Lines 116-131-140. I kindly advise the authors to explain why they decided to measure the Index determination, physiological and biochemical characteristics, and nutrient absorption before transplanting. Could those measurements be performed after transplanting to see the effect of the sowing rate and transplanting, in the long run, having more robust results?

·       Table1, Table3, Table2, Table4, Table5, and Table6. I strongly advise the author to indicate, in addition to the p-value, the type of statistical analysis and post-hoc performed in the caption of the tables.

·       Figure3. I strongly advise the author to indicate the type of statistical analysis, p-value, and post-hoc performed in the caption of the figure.

·       Lines 234-236. Since there are no significant differences in N (g/tray) between D1 and CK in 2020, and between D3 and D4 in both years, the sentence needs to be rewritten. I would rewrite "The highest absorption of N in the whole tray was the highest in D3 and D4 in both years, while the lowest were in D1 and CK in 2020 and in D1 in 2021."

·       Line 264. Please substitute the dot with a comma between the words “respectively” and “and”.

·       Figure 4. I strongly advise the author to indicate the type of statistical analysis, p-value, and post-hoc performed in the caption of the figure.

·       Line 316. Please rewrite. “at the heading stage” instead of “ in the heading stage”.

·       Line 322. It would be appropriate to indicate when of the treatments, D3 had the highest yield, followed by D2.

·       Lines 326-327. Considering that the primary branches in D4 have a single value, I would advise the authors to rewrite the sentence. For example, the primary branched was the highest in D4, showing a value of 11.42 which was significantly higher than that in CK.

·       Line 328. Please rewrite. “The thousand seed weight in D1” instead of “The thousand seed weight D1”

·       Lines 391-392. This sentence seems to be not so clear. It would be good to specify in which treatment the number of productive rice panicles increased (6.80%), thus significantly increasing the rice yield (7.86%), and try to give a scientific explanation. Did you observe any trend between the treatments? This is the discussion section and it is the right place to do it.

·       Lines 397-399. I strongly advise the authors to try to give a scientific explanation of why reducing the seeding rate and adopting precision drill sowing improved the seedling morphological index.

·       Lines 409-414. Why did the authors not discuss the result of MDA in this part of the manuscript? Since they cited the MDA and its functions in rows 405-408, it might be appropriate to discuss it. If the authors consider it not useful to discuss it, then I strongly advise to remove lines 405-408 should be removed.

·       Lines 457-458. It seems not so clear which treatment/s the seeding rate (too low), individual growth (too high), and the highly prominent seedlings are referred to. It would be good to clarify the sentence.

·       Lines 460-463. It might be useful to add some references to make more consistent your statement.

·       Lines 467-470. It would be advisable to indicate the tables and figures the results are referring to. Here, it is indicated only the Table 4.

·       Lines 486-504. This is a really nice part, full of general notions and information. I would consider moving this part, which sounds more like an introduction, to the first part of the discussion (after line 375).

·       Line 512. It would be recommended to put some references to support that statement whereby transplanting four seedlings (please specify the unit area) is satisfactory, theoretically.

 

 

 

Comments on the Quality of English Language

Moderate editing of the English language is required.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer，

Thank you very much for taking the time to review this manuscript. I appreciate the time and effort that you have dedicated to providing your valuable feedback on my manuscript. Please find the detailed responses below and the corresponding revisions marketed in yellow in the re-submitted files.

Yours sincerely

Yuedong Li, Prof.

Liaoning Rice Research Institute, Shenyang 110101, China

[email protected]

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report (Previous Reviewer 3)

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The revised version of the manuscript can be accepted.

Comments on the Quality of English Language

Minor editing may be needed.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer，

Thank you very much for taking the time to review this manuscript and recognition of this research. I appreciate the time and effort that you have dedicated to providing your valuable feedback on my manuscript. Based on your suggestion, we have invited professionals who are native English speakers to further modify the language of this article.

 

Yours sincerely

Yuedong Li, Prof.

Liaoning Rice Research Institute, Shenyang 110101, China

[email protected]

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report (Previous Reviewer 1)

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Dear Authors, 

Thank you so much for your excellent revision. 

I would advise you to make the captions of some figures and tables clearer and correct some grammatical mistakes.

- Table1; Table 2;  Table 3; Table 4; Table 5; Table 6; Figure 3; Figure 4. I would recommend the authors to modify a statement in the captions of these tables and figures. Instead of "A one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) followed by least significant difference (LSD) multiple range test", I would write "A one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) followed by least significant difference (LSD) multiple range test was performed to evaluate the statistical differences among the treatments per each parameter measured."

- Line 376-377. The letters B and C in the words biochemical and characteristics, respectively, should be in lowercase.

Line 438. P in the word "precision" should be in lowercase

- Line 438. The letter P in the word "precision" should be in lowercase.

- Line 536. Please specify the unit area. "Transplanting 4 seedlings/specify the unit area.

 

 

Comments on the Quality of English Language

Minor Editing

Author Response

Dear Reviewer，

Thank you very much for your careful review this manuscript and guidance my research contents once again. I appreciate the time and effort that you have dedicated to providing your valuable feedback on my manuscript. Please find the detailed responses below and the corresponding revisions marketed in red in the re-submitted files.

Point-by-point response to Comments and Suggestions for Authors In attached file.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

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

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Revision of the article Grain Yield, Rice Seedlings and Transplanting Quantity in 2 Response to Decreased Sowing Rate under Precision Drill 3 Sowing.

Comments:

Lines 87-89. Based on the purpose of the experiment and the technical information provided before and in Figure 2, I think you should use the term “transplantation rate for D1-D4” instead of the sowing rate. Please specify.

Figure 2. Based on the comment above I would rename the figure. Perhaps” sowing and transplanting diagram” instead of “sowing diagram”?

Line 106. Please put a comma between the words experiment and Transplanting.

Lines 164- 171. Equations here are plural. Please change “Equation 5-6” with “Equations 5-6”

Line 178. Could you please specify what you mean by “data difference analysis”?

Line 193-194. Here and in the other parts of the text where there is the same type of sentence I would rewrite to have a better understanding. Instead of “Plant height was highest in CK, 14.15 cm and 14.84 cm in the two years, 193 and lowest in D1, 12.26 cm and 12.43 cm in the two years”, I strongly invite to write “Plant height was highest in CK, showing values of 14.15 cm and 14.84 cm in 2020 and 2021, respectively; and lowest values in D1, 12.26 cm and 12.43 cm in 2020 and 2021, respectively.

Line 199. Please specify which treatment you are talking about here.

Lines 200-203. This is a comment, not a result. Please consider moving it to the discussion section.

Lines 212-213. The numbers 1.91 and 0.91 are written twice. Please remove the repetition.

Figure 3. Figure 3 has a low quality. It is difficult to read the letters and numbers in it. There is no description or statistical analysis reported. I strongly invite you to improve the quality of the figure and put a proper description of it.

Lines 230-232. I strongly recommend the authors rewrite this sentence. It is difficult to understand it.

Lines 240-240. I cannot see in Table 3 that the highest value of nitrogen is 4.64 g/tray in D3 and the lowest is 4.30 g/tray in D1 the hole tray. Please verify it.

Lines 246-247. Please reconsider rewriting this sentence. The absorption of K in the whole tray was higher in the precision drill sowing treatments than in CK in 2021 except for D1. There is no significant difference between D1 and CK.

Lines 247-248. I would not mix the results of 2020 and 2021 in a single sentence. It is very confusing. Please consider rewriting it.

Lines 248-249. I invite the authors to rewrite this sentence. I do not understand the expression “in addition to the treatments”. Please find my comment on lines 246-247.

Lines 257-258. Please specify in the text in which year the MDA activity was the highest in Ck and the lowest in D1.

Lines 266-268.  This is a comment, please consider moving it to the discussion section.

Fig 4. I strongly invite the authors to increase the quality of this figure. It is very difficult to read the numbers and letters on it. In addition, please specify the type of statistical analysis performed in the description of the figure.

Lines 286-289. Please consider moving this comment to the discussion section. Comments are not supposed to be included in the result section.

Table 4. Based on the title of Table 4 (Effects of precision drill sowing rate on transplanting quality of rice seedlings), I wonder if the tile of paragraph 3.6 (Transplanting Quantity of Rice Seedling). Should the word quantity be substituted with quality?

Lines 315-317. Please reconsider the interpretation of the statistical analysis performed. The P value of the treatment is always less than 0.05 in the biomass of the stem and the biomass of the root at the jointing, heading, and maturity stages.

Table 5. Please indicate the type of post-hoc performed.

Lines 340-341. Please reconsider the interpretation of the statistical analysis performed. There is a significant difference in the primary branched between D4 and CK in 2020, and D3, D4, and CK compared to D2 in 2021. There is a statistical difference in the weight of 1000 seeds between D1 compared to D4 and CK in 2020.

Figure 5. Please put the word “to” between “drill sowing” and “improve”.  Please correct the format of 0.01.

Discussion. Cite all the figures and tables in the discussion section. I would use the same symbols used in Tables and Figures. Instead of writing the numbers, I would use D1, D2, D3, D4, and CK.

Line 410. Please put some references here showing that SOD is the key enzyme for scavenging active oxygen free radicals in plants.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Comments on the Quality of English Language

Moderate editing of the English language is required.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer，

Thank you very much for taking the time to review this manuscript. I appreciate the time and effort that you have dedicated to providing your valuable feedback on my manuscript. Please find the detailed responses below and the corresponding revisions marketed in yellow in the re-submitted files.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Although there are statical differences in several traits, precision drill seeding does not increase yield largely (Table 6). The effect of precision drill seeding seems unclear.

 The cost of precision drill seeding should be discussed.

I can understand the content of this paper clearly.
I think more than 10% difference are needed in agronomy research.
However, the differences of most traits between D1-4 and CK are less than 10%.
Specially, the yield difference in figure 6 is unclear.
I cannot understand the effects of precision drill sowing. 

Author Response

Dear Reviewer，

Thank you very much for taking the time to review this manuscript. I appreciate the time and effort that you have dedicated to providing your valuable feedback on my manuscript. Please find the detailed responses below and the corresponding revisions marketed in yellow in the re-submitted files.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Comments on the manuscript “Grain Yield, Rice Seedlings and Transplanting Quantity in 2 Response to Decreased Sowing Rate under Precision Drill 3 Sowing”:

Considering the importance of rice production in the region and at the national level, the results of this research can be a practical and useful recommendation to improve the quantity and quality of rice production and be effective in providing food security.

Specific comments are as follows:

Abstract: The text of the abstract in terms of stating the context and research problem, presenting the important results, and the conclusion is well presented, but it needs to be rewritten in terms of grammar and sentence writing (some grammar and writing errors have been highlighted in the attached file).

Introduction: Grammatical and writing errors were observed. Corrections are needed.

Materials & methods: Grammatical defects were observed that should be corrected (refer to the attached file). Line 77, the region's latitude (241.58 N) should be corrected.

Results: The results section including the text, the tables, and the graphs has been prepared properly, except for the following items:

Line 192 (correction needed, refer to the attached file)

Line 356, the subtitle 3.8 be changed to 3.9

Line 360, (correction needed, refer to the attached file)

Line 370-371, (correction needed, refer to the attached file)

Discussion: The content of the discussion section is well-written and the arguments are well-presented.

 

 

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Comments on the Quality of English Language

Editing of English language required.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer，

Thank you very much for taking the time to review this manuscript. I appreciate the time and effort that you have dedicated to providing your valuable feedback on my manuscript. Please find the detailed responses below and the corresponding revisions marketed in yellow in the re-submitted files.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf