Design and Evaluation of a Shaping and Pruning Machine for Dwarf and Densely Planted Jujube Trees
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
The design and test of a Shaping and pruning machine were realized in this study.
The article is well written (also if needing correction some mistake of grammars (line 89: ...,And; line 219: hanging s carried..; line 343: concludes or includes?)
Introduction, materials and methods and results are well written.
However, the discussion section must be deepened, also doing the comparison with other studies.
Author Response
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Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
The article “Design and Test of Shaping and Pruning Machine for Dwarf and Dense Planting Jujube Trees” shows the development of a shaping and pruning machine for jujube trees address several problems of high intensity and low efficiency of artificial pruning for dwarf and dense planted jujube trees in Xinjiang. Overall, the article is ok; however, there are few things need to be developed as they are not in-line to the aims of the study.
1. Introduction: At present, the methods of pruning for fruit trees that includes artificial pruning and mechanical pruning are discussed and highlighted. Please highlight and provide some background on the key components of machine that could be useful in designing the tree growth information and pruning technical requirements; its structural and working parameters of components; utter rotation speed, and cutter diameter as influence variables; and missing pruning rates.
2. Materials and Methods: How the Jujube trees of dwarf and dense planting mode were customized with the developed Design and Test of the Pruning Machine? Please explain clearly in this section, as the readers would like to know how the tests were conducted. Such as the “The body structure of jujube trees is mainly composed of main stems, branches, side branches and jujube hangings. Shaping and pruning operation for jujube trees mainly includes cutting jujube branches and removing jujube hangings”. Explain how these tests were conducted in the “2.2.2. Working principle of overall machine” section, which is missing in the current form of the article.
3. Table 1. Growth information parameters before and after pruning of jujube tree: Which stage of the machine was developed? How the Jujube Trees were customized using that particular stage of the machine? Please explain in the table
4. Please provide few advantages of the “2.3. Design of pruning device” in respect of the Jujube Trees grown in Xinjiang Province.
5. Section 2.4. Design of removal mechanism for jujube hangings: Which design was more efficient for harvesting the qualitative and quantitative Jujube from trees? Please provide some information
6. Results section: This section is not optimized in a proper way. Please update the section with few highlights related to the key components of machine for growth information and pruning technical requirements of jujube trees, structural and working parameters of components, utilizing forward speed of machine, cutter rotation speed, and cutter diameter as influence variables, and missing pruning rate and stubble breaking rate.
7. Discussion section: This section does not provide enough information regarding the key components of machine for growth information and pruning technical requirements of jujube trees and other parameters conducted in the tests, very short number of references are provided which do not provide an overview of the comparison and discussion for the subject! Please update accordingly
8. Conclusion section: This section is not developed as required. Please provide conclusion related to the key components of machine for growth information and pruning technical requirements of jujube trees, structural and working parameters of components, utilizing forward speed of machine, cutter rotation speed, and cutter diameter as influence variables, and missing pruning rate and stubble breaking rate.
9. There references in the article are not in a proper quantity, they should be in a higher quantity so that the readers could get an idea and compare the studies for sustainable development in the concerned field.
Thank you.
Author Response
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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 3 Report
In this paper a shaping and pruning machine for jujube trees was discussed to address the difficulties of high intensity and low efficiency of artificial pruning for dwarf and dense planted jujube trees. The key components of machine were designed according to the growth information and pruning technical requirements of jujube trees. And the structural and working parameters of components or parts were determined. By utilizing forward speed of machine, cutter rotation speed, and cutter diameter as influence variables, and missing pruning rate and stubble breaking rate as evaluation indexes, a quadratic regression orthogonal test with three factors and three levels was constructed. It is worth publishing in this journal to share the results with readers interested in this field.
Here are a few suggestions for the authors:
- Line 189: The notation of "V" must be consistent with equations (1) and (2).
- Line 241 & 242: I don't know how you can derive equation (9) from equation (8)?
- Line 373: Equations 16 and 17 --> Equations (16) and (17)
Author Response
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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
The article has been improved as requested.
Best for a fruitfull career.
Author Response
Dear Reviewer:
Thank you very much for your support and recognition. With your suggestion and help, our paper will be more perfect.
Sincerely,
Prof. Dr. Wei Fu
School of Information and Communication Engineering, Hainan University [email protected]
Reviewer 2 Report
- Rev-1: The article “Design and Test of Shaping and Pruning Machine for Dwarf and Dense Planting Jujube Trees” shows the shaping and pruning machine for jujube trees to resolve the problems related to the difficulties of high intensity and low efficiency of artificial pruning for dwarf and dense planted jujube trees in Xinjiang. The paper is somehow improved, while major things still need to be improved.
- The introduction looks quite better from the previous version now; however, references are still lacking. Materials and Methods: One doubt please, why in the sections “2.2.2.”, and “2.3.2.” are provided with the summary in their end. In 3.1. Analysis of variance for test results: Eq. and (17) is not important to develop as P2 and X1-3, as they are self-explanatory parameters, already discussed in the article.
- Results: Needs a gigantic structural arrangement and reference/literature improvement for validation and strong basis of the shown results.
- Discussion section: A significant improvement is still required in terms of Reference/literature comparison and validation with the data discussed here.
Thank you.
Author Response
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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
