Comparative Performance of a Sprayer Rate Controller and Pulse Width Modulation (PWM) Systems for Site-Specific Pesticide Applications

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Manuscript, entitled „ Comparative Performance of a Sprayer Rate Controller and Pulse Width Modulation (PWM) Systems for Site-Specific Pesticide Application  „  is well written There are some modifications that should be included in order to enhance manuscript.

 

·         Line 33. Future research should be added in conclusion section.

·         Line 33. Keywords: Alphabetical order must be followed. ·         In introduction section.   What is the novelty (originality) of the work? And what is new in your work that makes a difference in the body of knowledge? ·         Materials and methods are well written. ·         Line 233. Change section (3. Results) to results and discussion. ·         Line 380. Please modified GopalaPillai et al. (1999) to GopalaPillai et al. [28]. ·          Please support the section results and discussion by previous studies.

·          Please write about the limitations of this work in details in conclusion section.

Author Response

Please find response to reviewer comments in the attached file.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

1.In the introduction section of the article, it is mentioned whether it is possible to use the device mentioned in the article for precise management of pests and more accurate application of pesticides to individual plants？

2.Due to the continuous improvement and upgrading of facility agriculture in recent years, such as the fact that most greenhouses can avoid pesticide use through environmental regulation, is there a comparison between the economic costs of not using pesticides and using pesticides, as the use of pesticides still has certain harmful effects?

3.Can the control of spray rate be replaced by the control of spray truck speed?

4.Since the article states that the system is used in a specific location, what kind of location is referred to as a specific location? Is there any explanation or chart display in the text? Since it is used in specific places, is it applicable to all general places? Can it adapt to the diversity of farmland?

5.Have universal articles been considered for different types of farmland, crops, or climate conditions? The complexity of actual farmland operation may affect the performance of spray system？

6.I think the abstract section needs to be more concise and clear. I am a bit confused when reading the abstract section. Some abbreviations can be reflected in the main text, which may make it more concise. If readers do not understand the meaning of abbreviations, they will continue to search in the main text to stimulate their reading interest.

7.Can Figure 1 possibly be supplemented with a schematic diagram drawn in CAD?

8.Add numbering to the subheadings in lines 389 and 455.

9.The cited literature is somewhat outdated, perhaps we can add some new articles from the past five years?

Comments on the Quality of English Language

Moderate editing

Author Response

Please find attached document for response to reviewer comments

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

1 You mentioned the data of “2.7 million metric tons of pesticides were used worldwide in 2011 and 2012. ......[1]” in lines 41-44 and I’m wondering that the data were from more than 10 years ago, could you searched some recent related data for the manuscript?

2 There are so many repeated manufacturers in the section "2. Materials and Methods", such as “TeeJet Technologies, Glen-dale Heights, IL”, “Omega Engineering Inc., Norwalk, CT” and “National Instruments, Austin,TX”. I suggest that you might use a table to describe all the components of the boom sprayer and list the same manufacturer once for improving the readability of the manuscript. By the way, is “TeeJet Technologies,Springfield, IL” in line 205-206 the same as “TeeJet Technologies, Glen-dale Heights, IL”? Please make sure.

3 In Table 3 and Table 4 , you don't need the note “[a] RC and PWM represent rate controller and pulse width modulation systems, respectively”for RC and PWM because they have been mentioned already in the main text of the manuscript.

4 About “Table 6” in line 302, but we could not find Table 6 in the manuscript. Maybe Table 4? Please double check all the tables' numbers for the whole manuscript. 

5 For the contents “In contrast, the PWM ...... using a sprayer equipped with a PWM sprayer” in lines 421-424, I think you may use “using a sprayer equipped with a PWM system” instead of “using a sprayer equipped with a PWM sprayer”.

6 “ASAE” in line 504 should be “ASABE” because ASAE has been changed to “ASABE” since 2003.

Comments on the Quality of English Language

Please see the “Comments and Suggestions for Authors”.

Author Response

Please see the attached document for response to reviewer comments.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf