Assessment of a Deep Burial Destoning System of Agrarian Soils Alternative to the Stone Removal and On-Site Crushing
, Maurizio Cutini 1, Giovanni Cabassi 2, Nicolò Pricca 2, Elio Romano 1 and Carlo Bisaglia 1Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
This paper concerns the evaluation of a mechanism that can be used to remove stones present in the soil enhancing its usage and also reducing damages caused by them in agriculture machines when performing soil preparation.
In general terms, the paper is well written, provides good figures and has a very practical appeal, which is the strongest quality found by this reviewer. The experiments were conducted on a small farm and seem to be very consistent, especially when drawing conclusions.
However, minor comments/suggestions will be given here to enhance the paper quality:
1 - The authors should be clear and state in the text what is Thesis and Control areas which are highlighted in Fig. 15.
2 - Where does figure 1 come from? reference [27]? Perhaps adding this reference in the label would avoid this doubt by the reader. Likewise for Figure 2. Where does this figure come from?
3 - Draw your own Figure 3 and define/highlight the point "10% of tillage present in the soil" (line 123) if there is any
Author Response
Dear reviewer, thank you for your appreciation and suggestions. We hope to have given satisfactory answers to your remarks, as listed below.
1 - The authors should be clear and state in the text what is Thesis and Control areas which are highlighted in Fig. 15 (now figure 14).
R. We have explained the trial setting in materials and methods and added figure 9. Please, see 221-224.
2 - Where does figure 1 come from? reference [27]? Perhaps adding this reference in the label would avoid this doubt by the reader. Likewise for Figure 2. Where does this figure come from?
R: Reference have been added accordingly. Please, see 90 and 113.
3 - Draw your own Figure 3 and define/highlight the point "10% of tillage present in the soil" (line 123) (now 120) if there is any:
R: We have modified the text to better explain the use of the algorithm. Please, see 120-123.
Reviewer 2 Report
The paper assessed a deep burial destoning system with stone removal and on-site crushing, and the research is interesting. However, this paper should be focused on the assessment, and current Result is too simple. Also, the discussion needs to be improved based on experimental results, current publications, etc.
Abstract: What are the results for the assessment? Also, more quantitative results should be added in Abstract.
Current status related to the topic of the paper is not clear. What are your contributions to current studies?
Please condense “2 Agrarian soils characteristics” and show your study.
Author Response
Dear reviewer, thank you for your suggestions. We hope to have given satisfactory answers to your remarks, as listed below.
1 - This paper should be focused on the assessment, and current Result is too simple.
R. We have modified and reorganized the declared aim of the trial and the results and discussion section. Please, see 78-81; 286-342.
2 - Also, the discussion needs to be improved based on experimental results, current publications, etc.
R. A chapter “2. State of the art” has been added to better clarify the paper goal, and a sub chapter “2.2 Soil destoning systems” has been focused on the main technical approach on stony soil management.
3 - Abstract: What are the results for the assessment? Also, more quantitative results should be added in Abstract.
R. As requested, a sum of the results has been added in the abstract. Please, see 22-24.
4 - Current status related to the topic of the paper is not clear. What are your contributions to current studies?
R. As indicated above, a chapter “2. State of the art” was added. This could help the reader for better understanding the novelty of our study. Also results have been reorganized accordingly with the new setting of the paper.
5 - Please condense “2 Agrarian soils characteristics” and show your study.
R. Chapter 2 has been rewritten and reorganized as “State of the art.
Reviewer 3 Report
I make a few remarks - the authors can supplement or evaluate the comments in the future.
Stony soils are a frequent problem – causes breakage and wear of the machinery, complicated harvesting of Sugar beet, potatoes, etc., and the scientific solutions is needed. As is well known, thousands of hectares of agricultural land are being damaged for the development of new roads and cities, in my opinion it would be cheaper to save soil and not damage it with unreasonable infrastructure development.
- Destoning impossible only on saveable soils, what soils are suitable for destoning, what was the soil moisture?
- Is the sieve bucket CM-CBR18 specially made whether it is ordinary production?
- How many stones were there, how many must be, when is it worth destoning, if a little it might not be worth it, - from what stones level is it worth digging?
- Is the clod and stone separator from reference 40 deliver higher performance than the stone deep burial? maybe you can compare?
- There is no comparison stone burial with other authors or removal types. Kaminski researched individual stone removal machines.
- Too much widely described general soils characteristics.
- From abstract: we find out this is the first evaluation of a deep burial destoning system carried out in the CREA Experimental Center of Treviglio (Italy) - novelty is noticeable, but the assessment is very weak, a very little information from research (266-267 line): “… 400 cubic meters of soil (2 x 10 x 20 x 1 mt), required a total of about 24 hours of machine work, and a consumption of about 400 litres of diesel fuel”. There are also no more accurate conclusions, no evaluations, and comparisons, maybe they can be written.
- There are no reliable results in the conclusions: „the described destoning system is very effective in the constitution of a high-quality arable layer…“.
- numbering of lines in Table 2.
Author Response
Dear reviewer, thank you for your suggestions. We hope to have given satisfactory answers to your remarks, as listed below.
1 - Destoning impossible only on saveable soils: what soils are suitable for destoning,
R. The response can’t be “numeric”. It depends by many agro-economic factors, that we have detailed in the text. Please, see 51-58; 73-77; 103-106; 133-142; 344-351.
2 - what was the soil moisture:
R. We didn’t consider this data significant for the trial purposes; our interest was directed to be sure that it was compatible for an efficient soil sieving (see Figure 10 b,c).
3 - Is the sieve bucket CM-CBR18 specially made whether it is ordinary production?
R. It's a machinery available on the market. We answered your question in the description of the yard. Please, see 218-220.
4 - How many stones were there? how many must be, when is it worth destoning, if a little it might not be worth it, - from what stones level is it worth digging
R. We have reorganized and improved the state of the art to better explain the significance of the soil stoniness influence in soil management, and the reasons that can lead to investing in soil reclamation. The answers to your specific questions are given in the text. Please, see 210-212; 137-142.
5 - Is the clod and stone separator from reference 40 deliver higher performance than the stone deep burial? maybe you can compare?
R. In this study we have adopted a different approach to the burial technique, with the aim of obtaining a long-term stable arable layer of better workability class and thickness, avoiding the shortcomings described in the destonation methods currently adopted; in this case, the low thickness of the fine earth arable layer obtainable, due to the shallow working depth of this machine (400 mm).
6 - There is no comparison stone burial with other authors or removal types. Kaminski researched individual stone removal machines.
R. As mentioned above, the purpose of this study is the evaluation of a different approach in the reclamation of stony soil, with the aim of obtaining a long-term stable arable layer of better workability class and thickness, avoiding the shortcomings described in the destonation methods currently adopted. The results obtained lead to consider this objective achieved.
7 - Too much widely described general soils characteristics.
R. This section was reduced accordingly.
8 - From abstract: we find out this is the first evaluation of a deep burial destoning system carried out in the CREA Experimental Center of Treviglio (Italy) - novelty is noticeable, but the assessment is very weak, a very little information from research (266-267 line): “… 400 cubic meters of soil (2 x 10 x 20 x 1 mt), required a total of about 24 hours of machine work, and a consumption of about 400 litres of diesel fuel”.
- There are also no more accurate conclusions, no evaluations, and comparisons, maybe they can be written.
- There are no reliable results in the conclusions: the described destoning system is very effective in the constitution of a high-quality arable layer…“.
R. We have reorganized and rewited the results and discussion section, and better explained the main aim of the research.
9 - numbering of lines in Table 2:
R. The AgriEngineering template auto numbering the lines.
Round 2
Reviewer 2 Report
This paper was revised according to the comments, but the discussion still needs to be improved based on experimental results, current studies, etc.
Author Response
Dear reviewer, we have improved sections 4 and 5 taking into account your suggestions.
Please, consider that at this stage of the trial it was of primary importance to assess the feasibility of the proposed method from the physical-mechanical point of view, since there are still no commercial systems capable of carrying out this task.
Moreover, the different approach used in our trial for the reclamation of stony soil, as explained in the text, has been carried out with the aim of solving in the long-term the highlighted shortcomings of other destoning systems as they are commonly applied in agricultural stony soils. No similar works were found in literature.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
