Altered Organic Matter Chemical Functional Groups and Bacterial Community Composition Promote Crop Yield under Integrated Soil–Crop Management System

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments for author File: Comments.docx

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

Manuscript ID: agriculture-2073453

Title: The altered organic matter chemical functional groups and bacterial community composition promote crop yield under integrated soil-crop management system

This manuscript describe the role of different nutrient management practices on soil fertility, carbon stocks, bacterial community composition and maize productivity. Overall, the manuscript is well written and sound scientific quality. However there are following concerns which must be addressed before its publication.

 

References in the text are not cited according to the journal guideline see for example page 2, 4^th paragraph.

Under an integrated management system, the application of organic fertilizer is too much. Which kind of organic fertilizer was applied? What was its initial chemical composition, and nutrient content (N, P, K, and mineral N)? Is there any recommendation for a such high amount of organic fertilizer used in addition to the high amount of mineral nutrients (N, P, K applied)?

Secondly how the high yield system is defined although the nutrient management system is the same as conventional farming practices except for the high density of plants which I suspect would lead to the competition of resources among the plants and would end up with a similar yield.

I suggest adding Table 1A to the main text. This is very important data tell about the treatments of the experiment.

The sampling depth of 0-2 cm is correct for BD? Please check

What do you mean by thirdly part for bacterial DNA extraction?

KCl2?

Equation 1, D, depth is not present in the formula or maybe you intended to represent H for the said purpose

Is the data checked for normality before ANOVA analysis, If yes please add the test name, if not please check for normality and then analyze for ANOVA for normal data and non-normal data for another suitable statistical test?

Please also add the results about yield parameter in the results section

The 9% increase in the yield of ISSM management might be responsible for high organic fertilizer inputs. It is obvious that increased in nutrient application in the soil would result in high yield than low fertilizer application treatment.

Secondly such high management system would lead to high nutrient losses in the environment such as ammonia emission, nitrate leaching, denitrification losses. How such management system would be sustainable despite of increasing SOC (87%)? R strategists might increase decomposition, nutrient mineralization, and nutrient losses as well. How would such management system cope with such losses of nutrient to the environment?

Discussion

I am not sure the highest yield is related to high amount of labile C. The presence of labile C would lead to more microbial activity as observed in this study and many other would lead to increase nutrient immobilization which would result in decrease nutrient availability for pla t uptake and the crop yield (Sawada et 2015).

Labile C is more prone to decomposition, C mineralization and CO2 emission, would the accumulation of labile C lead to C accumulation in the soil or prone to more CO2 losses?

Please discuss about the effect of such management systems on nutrient losses and environmental pollution. Since such high amount of nutrients input were more prone to the nutrient losses and environmental pollution.

 

 

References

Kozue Sawada, Shinya Funakawa, Koki Toyota & Takashi Kosaki (2015) Potential nitrogen immobilization as influenced by available carbon in Japanese arable and forest soils, Soil Science and Plant Nutrition, 61:6, 917-926, DOI: 10.1080/00380768.2015.1075364

 

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 3 Report

This study investigates the effects of long-term farmland management on soil organic carbon and increases soil fertility. Furthermore, improve soil quality and agroecosystem sustainability. However, the sections of the paper such as material and/or results i.e., are writing in confused. The English language should be revised, and some information should be completed and organized again.

-  Title should be changed.

-  The abstract of this study is weak and should show important results. The objective and conclusion are not clear. The results are not enough. In general, this section is poorly written and arranged.

-  Keywords it is inappropriate to mention the words that make up the manuscript's title here.

- Please revise the writing style for (CO²) throughout the manuscript. It's subscript.

- please revise this sentence “Organic fertilizers are rich in organic matter and beneficial microorganisms [16]. Various field experiments have revealed that long-term organic fertilization can increase SOM and improve the levels of multiple constituents in the soil that support crop health”.

- Try the next round of the revision to create line numbers of the manuscript to be easily referred to as comments or suggestions in the text.

-        After long-term organic matter input, greater SOC has been observed, and it has been accompanied by greater microbial activity (Francioli et al., 2016; Semenov et al., 2021). Check references style writing.

-        ISSM has been shown to increase crop yield by 20% and nitrogen use efficiency by 40% in maize at 15 long-term (≥8 years) field trial sites [41-43]. Please check the original reference, something is not right!

-        The section of “2.3. Solid-State13C NMR Spectroscopy” should be revised and improved its writing again.

-        Again, check the subscript and superscript either small letters or numbers throughout the manuscript.

-              Check the spaces among words, letters, and format writing.

- Check the international standard units throughout manuscript.

- Check for complete information: Name of the instrument, Name of the company, city, country.

- The authors should write materials and methods more organized and easily, in this form it's complicated and the reader is confused about to complete flow of the steps or procedures. Especially section of “2.5. Statistical Analyses”.

Results and discussion:

The whole results and discussion section is written rather repetitively, and readers are challenged to keep on reading! You need to rewrite this section so that it is attractive to the reader. When describing your results. Somehow you fail to really interpret your treatment effects. So please rewrite the results and discussion section again and try writing sample sentences.

Conclusion:

it is inappropriate to mention the figure. The organization of this section is poor. It should be improved by the authors.

 

Best regards

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

Please add the response of comment#11 in the discussion section

Author Response

Thank you very much for your suggestion. We have added the response to comment #11 in the Discussion 4.1 and 4.3 sections.