The Crop Phosphorus Uptake, Use Efficiency, and Budget under Long-Term Manure and Fertilizer Application in a Rice–Wheat Planting System
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsComments on manuscript 3131650 submitted to Agriculture
Overall, it is a good manuscript and research is rich in information from a 35-year long term study in wheat-rice crop system. The data on crop P uptake, P balance in soil from chemical fertilizer, manure and a combination of manure + chemical fertilizer application demonstrates sophistical nutrient management crop production. The long-term study demonstrated the P uptake efficiency is much higher than 12 to 20% of global average, showing the significant of the study. Given the P is a limited resource, information on improvement of P use efficiency is much needed. However, revisions are needed before the manuscript can be published in the journal. Many suggestions are marked in the margins of the original manuscript. However, here are the additional suggestions.
1. Mean annual temperature is needed, it should include mean annual temperature, mean temperature for rice growing season, mean annual temperature for wheat growing season.
2. If possible, authors should break the precipitations to the rice growing season and wheat growing season.
3. Cultivar difference. It is understandable that use of same cultivars over a 35-year period is difficult, nevertheless, the authors should mention whether or not there are sharp differences in yield and nutrient uptake of different cultivars that are used for the trial.
4. Statistics should be applied to Figures 1, and 2. That is, LSD vertical bars should be placed in the figure so that comparisons can be made. In addition, Standard error should be used so that the range of data can be seen.
5. Abstract, tables and figures are independent or should be stand alone. In other words, readers should be able to understand them just by reading, but not to refer to other sources. As such, Latin names should be added to the Abstract, footnotes should be added to the tables. If statistics are added to the figures, captions should have a full notes for each of the statistics.
6. In the discussion section, whenever your results are referred, please reference them to the corresponding table or figure.
Comments for author File: 
Comments.pdf
The English writing in the manuscript in fact is pretty good. But some use habit may need to make improvement. Authors like to say "... all shown in Table x, then started to show the results. Typical English writing is to cite the table when results are presented in the text.
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsDear Authors,
Correction suggestions are described in the attached file.
Best regards,
Comments for author File: Comments.pdf
Dear Authors,
Correction suggestions are described in the attached file.
Best regards,
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
