Effect of Treated Wastewater Irrigation on the Accumulation and Transfer of Heavy Metals in Lemon Trees Cultivated in Arid Environment
, Ziad B. Al-Rawashdeh 2, Khaled A. Al-Habahbeh 2, Jamal Y. Ayad 3,* and Rabea S. Al-Sayaydeh 2,*
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
In this manuscript, the authors aim to evaluate the effect of irrigation of treated wastewater in lemon orchards on the accumulation of heavy metals (HMs) in the soil and their uptake and translocation to aerial parts of the trees. The authors found that the irrigation of lemon trees with TWW had a significant effect on the bioaccumulation factor and translocation factors (TF) of HMs into different lemon tree parts, and concluded that lemons seem to have the potential to be accumulators for some harmful metalloids such as Cd and Ni, and therefore caution should be considered. This study has issued reminder about such irrigation programs affects fruits quality and human diet health. The following points need to be considered or improved in this manuscript.
1. In whole manuscript, for statistical method, ‘LSD (P≤0.05)’ is incorrect, and it should be ‘LSD (P<0.05)’.
2. In Table 1, CaCO3 should be revised to CaCO3(subscript).
3. Line 168, the literature citation ‘Estefan et al. (2013)’ should be more standard and unified.
4. Line 309, It’s better to replace “in general agreement with” to other fitting description.
Author Response
Please see the attachment
Author Response File: 
Author Response.docx
Reviewer 2 Report
Title: Effect of Treated Wastewater Irrigation on the Accumulation and Transfer of Heavy Metals in Lemon Trees Cultivated in 3 Arid Environment
Comments to the author:
The author touched that if the treated wastewater can be employed to water the lemon trees, which is very important for the agricultural production in the arid regions. It provides crucial suggestions for the farmers and government. This kind of study should be promoted. However, there are a few mistakes that need to be corrected. They are as follows:
1. P1, L15; P1, L29; all the ‘considered’ listed in this paper should be “considered as”.
2. P1, L19; ‘that were’ should be ‘to be’.
3. P2, L65; ‘Citrus includes’ should be ‘Citrus and many other fruit trees’.
4. P3, L128; the reference number should be cited correctly.
5. P4, L166; P5, L178; two times of ‘2.4’ were used, which should be corrected.
6. P12, Figure2; below each panel, ‘SW’ and ‘TWW’ should keep the same format.
7. P13, L445; the bibliography part should follow the standard of Horticulturae Journal. No direct link should show up in a different way.
Until Conclusion, the author mentioned about ‘Cd and Ni’ deposition problem of using the TWW to water the lemons. However, no corresponding resolutions were mentioned. Further discussion was necessary for this paper to discuss how to solve this HM problem. Otherwise, this study is meaningless.
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
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.
