Fertilizer Reduction Combined with Organic Liquid Fertilizer Improved Canopy Structure and Function and Increased Cotton Yield
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Line 85 and 86: there should be a punctuation and space at the end of the two sentences ending with ‘(Table1)’
Table 1 are missing a legend indicating a little information about the content of the table. Title of first column should be more specific: characteristics of topsoil layer.
line 95 'soluble organic' matter should be clarified with a word or two referring to origin of material/composition/type of material. (Just a little more specific in addition to the literature reference).
Line 119... unclear sentence... ...the average value was taken while the veins were measured. Please clarify sentence.
Line 161: two error space should be deleted from the word Di ff erent.
Line 178: Remove parentheses: .... 'as shown in (Figure 3)' should - changed to 'as shown in figure 3'.
Abbreviation codes:
line 192: at the later full boll stage with DIFN: indicate abbreviations in parenthesis first time you use abbreviations: later full boll stage (LBF). This should be checked for all abbreviations. Se also following comment concerning this.
For all figures: The abbreviations for different fertilizers and botanical developmental stages used in figures could preferably be described in the figure legends, making the figures self-explanatory. This may also be solved by referring in the figure to a section where abbreviations are given. Be sure that all the abbreviations used in text and in figures are described in full the first time used and preferably indicate all abbreviations in a separate section. I would prefer to use as few abbreviations in text and figures as possible, to increase the readability of the paper. A general reduction of abbreviations in the text and figures will improve the readability of the paper. Journal editors may also have preferences concerning use of abbreviations and lists to clarify those.
Figure legends:
Figure 6 legend: Figure legend lack information. The measurement unit for cotton canopy should be given (unit for numbers .020 to .180). It should also be initiated the type of plot used in this figure if it is a specific type of illustration/presentation.
Figure 7: It should be described in the legend what factor the effect is measured on (probably yield?).
Unclear sentence:
line 295-297: In this study, fertilizer combined with organic liquid fertilizer obviously increased the SPAD value at the full boll stage, while the SPAD value increased with increasing fertilizer application rate. -> this sentence is unclear to me. May be split in two sentences and clarify.
Other minor changes:
line 356: move the reference 15 before ‘that’ like this: Studies have shown (15) that when...
Conclusion, line 383-384: In the conclusion, most terms should be used in full and not as abbreviations (except for commonly known abbreviations). Example from line 356: Compared with the chemical fertilizer CF treatment, organic liquid fertilizer (OF) combined with reduced chemical fertilizer (CF) increased the leaf SPAD value,…
Author Response
Please look at the attachment.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.docx
Reviewer 2 Report
The research topic is very interesting and may have great importance. The manuscript contains many valuable results. However, the manuscript needs some improvements and corrections.
Keywords:
Please arrange the keywords in alphabetical order.
Materials and Methods:
Line 87: Table1 has no title. Please correct.
Line 114: This section also belongs to Materials and Methods. Please renumber it.
Line 152. Data analysis is also should be part of the Materials and Methods section. Please renumber it.
Results:
Figure2, 4, 5, and 7: These figures are very crowded, significant differences can’t see well. Please restructure them.
Figure titles do not contain sufficient information about the figure's data. Please rewrite them.
Table and Figures’ title should contain the name of treatments, the number of repetitions, and what the lower case letters represent on the figures?, S.D. or S.E. are representing on the figures? etc.
Author Response
Please look at the attchment.
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
