Variations of Soil Salinity and Cotton Growth under Six-Years Mulched Drip Irrigation

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Although the topic is interesting, there are some issues, such as irrigation process:

How did you calculate irrigation doses?

How did you manage irrigation periods?

What was the time of each irrigation?

Did you calculate evapotranspiration? If yes, which method did you use?

Metrological data is missing from the paper, while precipitation is crucial to salt leaching.

How can you be sure that drip irrigation is the only parameter that led to salinity decrease?

Did you check the quality of the irrigation water? Was it the same during the 6 years of the monitoring?

Did you check the quality of rain water? Was it the same during the 6 years of the monitoring?

Overall, the paper is interesting, but if you enrich it with answers to the above questions, it will improve its quality and attract international readers.

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

 Comments to the paper on ‘Variations of Soil Salinity and Cotton Growth under Long-term Mulched Drip Irrigation’

Dear Authors，

The manuscript applied long-term field experiment of mulched drip irrigation in arid area and tested quality of soil, cotton yield. The study is timely, given that increasing production from marginal land is inevitable due to the increasing demand for food, fibre etc. I congratulate the authors for the clear figures/visualization of the results. Please look at the comments below:

• Line 10: The first sentence of the abstract seems incorrect. The variation of salt content in the field . … is important for sustainable cotton plantation. Suggestion: Instead of variation of salt content, lowering of salt content in the field...
• The authors quoted in the manuscript that seasonal irrigation quota of cotton in Xinjiang area is 345-390 mm [see Line 45-48]. However, the authors did the experiment by applying twice of the quota, i.e. seasonal irrigation of 730 mm to 825 mm [Table 1]; though water is also one of the scarce resources particularly in dry areas. Can you comment on the sustainability of cotton production from water point of view as you are recommending an irrigation application, which is twice that of the water saving irrigation quota stated in Line 45-48?
• The authors could add the seasonal/ off-season/ precipitation amount as it has contribution for crop growth and leaching. This is important to which agro-climatic zones ‘the research results obtained could be extrapolated to saline-alkaline regions in other oases’ [Line 346-347].
• Line 121-123: The second part of the sentence in Line 121-123, does not fit the section, consider deleting it or revising it so that it could fit in the section. ” Soil samples were collected at 0-3 cm, 20±3 cm, 40±3 cm, 121 60±3 cm, 80±3 cm, 100±3 cm, 120±3 cm, and 140±3 cm, but the differences of salt and ions in the root zone of the cotton (0-100 cm) had the greatest practical significance for sustain able production.”
• The authors observed lowering of salt contents under MDI zones but the salt accumulated in the bare land between plastic films [Line 174-176]. Do not you see the risk of tillage redistributing the salt from the bare part to the MDI zones and thus affecting yield? I would reflect on this issue as disclaimer under the discussion section.

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

Dear authors, 

I think that your manuscript is now improved significantly and can be published with some minor corrections (please see the attached file).

Best regards 

Comments for author File: Comments.docx

Author Response

Response to Reviewer Comments

Authors are very grateful to you for your valuable comments. We have checked and revised the questions you raised, including the English expression of the full text, one by one. And we are very sorry that the line number been wrongly marked due to the authors' mistakes.

Reviewer: Units (mm) should be written in each column of the Table and not in the title of the Table.

Answer: We have carefully revised the manuscript based on your suggestions. [Line 113]