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Article
Peer-Review Record

The Use of Soil Surface Mulching on Melon (Cucumis melo L.) Production under Temperate Climate Conditions

Agriculture 2024, 14(8), 1398; https://doi.org/10.3390/agriculture14081398
by Katarzyna Adamczewska-Sowińska
Reviewer 1: Anonymous
Reviewer 2:
Reviewer 3: Anonymous
Agriculture 2024, 14(8), 1398; https://doi.org/10.3390/agriculture14081398
Submission received: 20 July 2024 / Revised: 15 August 2024 / Accepted: 16 August 2024 / Published: 19 August 2024

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The manuscript presents a study to determine how selecting an appropriate variety adapted to climatic conditions, as well as the type of mulching material used for the soil surface, can significantly impact the growth and yield of melons cultivated under Central Europe's climatic conditions. The author provides a thorough overview of the experimental process and its design. Overall, this is an interesting work.

Major Issues:

Results and discussion section: each result description should clearly indicate which figure or table it corresponds to. Additionally, the figures and tables need to be well-formatted, including complete axis labels, units, and other relevant information.

Minor Issues:

Tables 3-6: It is unfortunate that I cannot understand the content and significance of these tables. The author should include additional explanations or notes below the tables to clarify what DF and F represent, for instance.

Lines 248-262, 283-289: Each result description should clearly specify which figure or table it refers to.

Author Response

Reviewer 1

Comments:

The manuscript presents a study to determine how selecting an appropriate variety adapted to climatic conditions, as well as the type of mulching material used for the soil surface, can significantly impact the growth and yield of melons cultivated under Central Europe's climatic conditions. The author provides a thorough overview of the experimental process and its design. Overall, this is an interesting work.

Response:

Thank you for comments.

Comments:

Results and discussion section: each result description should clearly indicate which figure or table it corresponds to. Additionally, the figures and tables need to be well-formatted, including complete axis labels, units, and other relevant information.

Response:

Thank you. Manuscript improved and axis labels included.

Comments:

Tables 3-6: It is unfortunate that I cannot understand the content and significance of these tables. The author should include additional explanations or notes below the tables to clarify what DF and F represent, for instance.

Response:

Corrected and supplemented descriptions under tables 3-6. df – degree freedom, The F test to determine whether group means are equal is calculated variation between sample means/variation within the samples

 

 

Comments:

Lines 248-262, 283-289: Each result description should clearly specify which figure or table it refers to.

Response:

The descriptions have been supplemented in accordance with the reviewer's comments.

 

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

After reviewing the article number agriculture-3141173 entitled Reaction of melon (Cucumis melo L.) to soil surface mulching under temperate climate conditions, I think it provides good information in the results section, but in other sections, it needs changes as I have mentioned below:

Introduction:

- Introduction is too general in some parts, i expect to see more interesting information from mulching and temperate climate conditions. also reference number 8 should be update based on last report of the FAOSTAT.

Material and methods:

- Today, to reduce the error and improve the quality of the experiments, it is better to do the design with more than 3 replications.

- Polish National List of Vegetable Plant Varieties.... Mention the full name of the seeds center and then give a reference.

- In my view Tables 1 and 2 are not necessary in the text and can be added as supplementary materials.

Conclusions

Looks wordy, i suggest to summarize it in 2 or 3 sections and avoid to write too much things. 

Comments on the Quality of English Language

should check and improve by native speaker.

Author Response

Reviewer 2

Comments:

After reviewing the article number agriculture-3141173 entitled Reaction of melon (Cucumis melo L.) to soil surface mulching under temperate climate conditions, I think it provides good information in the results section, but in other sections, it needs changes as I have mentioned below:

Response:

Thank you for comments.

Comments:

Introduction:

- Introduction is too general in some parts, i expect to see more interesting information from mulching and temperate climate conditions. also reference number 8 should be update based on last report of the FAOSTAT.

Response:

The description in the introduction has been supplemented in accordance with the reviewer's comment.

Comments:

Material and methods:

- Today, to reduce the error and improve the quality of the experiments, it is better to do the design with more than 3 replications.

Response:

The experiment was expanded in the number of levels of factors I and II and for organizational reasons the number of repetitions was reduced to 3.

Comments:

- Polish National List of Vegetable Plant Varieties.... Mention the full name of the seeds center and then give a reference.

Response:

The full name of seed companies and references has included (Polish National List of Vegetable Plant Varieties, 2023. COBORU, Słupia Wielka. ISSN 1231-8280)

.

Comments:

- In my view Tables 1 and 2 are not necessary in the text and can be added as supplementary materials.

Response:

The weather condition had a major impact on the yield of melon fruit. The author's goal is that tables showing weather patterns should remain in the main text.(

Comments:

Conclusions

Looks wordy, i suggest to summarize it in 2 or 3 sections and avoid to write too much things.

Response:

As suggested by the Reviewer, the conclusion have been shortened.

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Comments

This manuscript conducted the research about the response of the melon from different types of mulch and in different years. However, the manuscript did not clearly introduce the background of the study and the research question was not shown, the quality of the figures or tables is not qualified, please rethink about other way to present the data more clearly. The effects of mulching and climate on melon should be distinguished describe and discussed with previous studies. More specific comments were as follows:

 

1.     Title page: Please check the phone number of the author.

2.     Title: it is not accurate to use ‘reaction’ here, the whole manuscript presents the growth and production of melons that are not reaction.

3.     Introduction: As listed in the title, the previous studies about climate condition change on fruits were barely discussed in the introduction. These should be presented in the introduction.

4.     Introduction, line 52-65: The background of the temperate climate conditions should be discussed in the introduction.

5.     Materials and methods: I suggest dividing this section into several subsections, the current format is not clear to see the materials and methods of the manuscript.

6.     Materials and methods: Please clearly present the indicators or parameters that present the response of melon to mulching.

7.     Table 1: Please add the standard deviation of the temperatures in the table.

8.     Table 2: it is the same that here in the table, the standard deviation should be present to see the significant difference between either temperature or rainfall in each time period.

9.     Figure 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6: It is not clear that what the y-axis means?

10.  Table 14: the small letters presenting the significance in the table were a bit mess, I suggest the author recheck the data and put standard deviation in the table.

11.  Results and discussion: what affects more on melons, different types of mulching or changing climate conditions in different years? It did not clearly discuss in this section.

Comments on the Quality of English Language

The English writing is readable, though some phrases are not quite formal in writing.

Author Response

Reviewer 3

Comments:

This manuscript conducted the research about the response of the melon from different types of mulch and in different years. However, the manuscript did not clearly introduce the background of the study and the research question was not shown, the quality of the figures or tables is not qualified, please rethink about other way to present the data more clearly. The effects of mulching and climate on melon should be distinguished describe and discussed with previous studies. More specific comments were as follows:

Response:

Thank you for comments. Manuscript was uploaded point-by-point.

Comments:

  1. Title page: Please check the phone number of the author.

Response:

Phone number was added.

Comments:

  1. Title: it is not accurate to use ‘reaction’ here, the whole manuscript presents the growth and production of melons that are not reaction.

Response:

The title of the manuscript has been corrected and new proposal: ”The use of soil surface mulching on melon (Cucumis melo L.) production under temperate climate conditions”

Comments:

  1. Introduction: As listed in the title, the previous studies about climate condition change on fruits were barely discussed in the introduction. These should be presented in the introduction.

Response:

The introduction has been supplemented with the influence of weather conditions on fruit. New version include: “Stress factors as a very high temperature and lack of rainfall will appear more and more often, regularly, so that crops are permanently exposed to them [2].

A classification of thermal conditions in Poland indicates that since the beginning of the second half of the 20th century, these conditions have changed a lot [3]. Until the mid-1980s, they were classified as a cold and cool conditions every year. Since the second half of the 1980s, conditions described as normal or warmer which occurred more often. In the last decade, however, conditions from very warm to extremely warm prevailed. The average air temperature in Poland in 2022 reached 9.5°C and was 0.8°C higher than the annual multi-annual average (1991-2020). In the study area (Lower Silesia) was the warmest region, with an average annual air temperature of 10.5°C. The average total rainfall in Poland in 2022 was 534.4 mm, which is on 87.4% of the normal average value determined on the basis of 30-year data (1991-2020). Rainfall was characterized by strong spatial variability (350 to 950 mm) and unevenness during growing season. The climatic water balance, i.e. the difference between total precipitation and evaporation, in the period from May to October, is often negative in Lower Silesia.”

Comments:

  1. Introduction, line 52-65: The background of the temperate climate conditions should be discussed in the introduction.

Response:

Introduction was supplemented. Information above.

Comments:

  1. Materials and methods: I suggest dividing this section into several subsections, the current format is not clear to see the materials and methods of the manuscript.

Response:

Section Material and methods was divided on ? subsection:

  • Experiment localization and design
  • Experiment methodology
  • Experimental statistical analysis

 

Comments:

  1. Materials and methods: Please clearly present the indicators or parameters that present the response of melon to mulching.

Response:

The revised version highlights the data that were influenced by the type of mulch used. My proposal (lines 128-132 new version) “Marketable yield and fruit count were assessed, accompanied by biometric measurements to determine individual fruit weight (in kg), vertical and horizontal diameters measure in wider fruit diameter (in cm), and shape coefficient as a ratio of vertical to horizontal diameter. The above-mentioned parameters depended to a large extent on the mulches type.”

Comments:

  1. Table 1: Please add the standard deviation of the temperatures in the table.

Response:

Only data from 3 years were used to characterize the weather condition. In my opinion, this is too little data to calculate SD.

Comments:

  1. Table 2: it is the same that here in the table, the standard deviation should be present to see the significant difference between either temperature or rainfall in each time period.

Response:

As above.

Comments:

  1. Figure 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6: It is not clear that what the y-axis means?

Response:

Added name of axis y.

Comments:

  1. Table 14: the small letters presenting the significance in the table were a bit mess, I suggest the author recheck the data and put standard deviation in the table.

Response:

Data presented in table 14 corrected.

Comments:

  1. Results and discussion: what affects more on melons, different types of mulching or changing climate conditions in different years? It did not clearly discuss in this section.

Response:

Discussion corrected.

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The manuscript has been improved after the first review, for the formatting I suggest to adding the doi address.

Comments on the Quality of English Language

Still I think it should check by native person to increase the English level.

Author Response

Reviewer 2

Comments

The manuscript has been improved after the first review, for the formatting I suggest to adding the doi address.

Response

Added doi addresses.

Still I think it should check by native person to increase the English level.

Response

The manuscript was re-read and corrected.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The Manuscript has been improved, however, I strongly suggest updating the figures, figure 2, 3 and 4, 'cm' is not an appropriate Y-axis label.

Author Response

Reviewer 3

Comments

The Manuscript has been improved, however, I strongly suggest updating the figures, figure 2, 3 and 4, 'cm' is not an appropriate Y-axis label.

Response

Thank you for comments. Only the Y axis in Figure 4 has been updated. For figures 2 and 3 “cm” is appropriate label.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

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