Effects of Different Soybean and Maize Mixed Proportions in a Strip Intercropping System on Silage Fermentation Quality

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Dear Authors

I have gone through the paper very carefully.  The aim of the paper was to determine the effect of different mixed proportion of soybean and maize in the strip intercropping system on the resultant silage quality.  This paper provide invaluable information about the effect of ensiling maize with soybean in terms of chemical composition and fermentation parameters. However it would be useful if the effect of effect of ensiling maize with soybean on the aerobic stability and digestibility of the resultant silages had been given.  If you have some samples you can determine the aerobic stability and in vitro digestibility of silages. It would also be very useful if the relationship between aerobic stability and microbial community had been provided in the manuscript.

With my best regards

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Effects of Different Mixed Proportion of Soybean and Maize in the Strip Intercropping System on the Silage Fermentation Quality

 

Abstract

L18-19: Dry Matter Yield and Fresh Matter Yield…>>> Dry matter yield and fresh matter yield…

 

Introduction

Written well and addressed the necessity of the study along with the importance and hypothesis.

 

M&M

Stated in enough details.

Please keep the formatting consistent and according to the guideline. For example, subheadings should be capitalized but, in this case, there is inconsistency. Also, the format of P value reporting is not consistent (sometimes capital, sometime small, sometime italic…etc.

 

Results

There is a lack of reporting P values in the table. Please provide them all.

 

Discussion

The citation is the text is not correct sometimes. For example L 458: Zeng et al. [19] and many more examples. Please correct.

References

The formatting is not correct sometime. Sometimes full name of the journal are provided and sometimes only abbreviations. There are many examples. Please follow the journal guideline and be consistent.

 

 

 

 

Comments for author File: Comments.docx

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

The authors addressed all of my comments except one. The manuscript has been improved significantly and has merit for publication after the authors provide P-value column in the tables (where applicable; results section). 

Author Response

Please see the attachment

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf