Proper Delay of Phosphorus Application Promotes Wheat Growth and Nutrient Uptake under Low Phosphorus Condition
, Yuting Lei 1 and Min Duan 4,5
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Dear Authors,Use the following suggestions to improve the quality of the manuscript.
1. The manuscript is not in the journal format therefore, change the format of the manuscript (such as references).
2. Abstract: Rewrite again. The results are unclear.
3. Introduction- Do not repeat the statement. Check the format of the references. Add hypothesis of the study. Check the abbreviations .....
4. Result: Add information about the wheat harvest information.
5. Discussion: Do not repeat results in the discussions. Use proper terminology to discuss your findings.
6. Conclusions: Rewrite in the broad format.
7. References- Not in the journal.
Overall, improve the quality of the manuscript. The rational of this is location-specific and hence try to improve further for worldwide understanding.
Regards,
Comments for author File: 
Comments.pdf
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.docx
Reviewer 2 Report
The article presents an interesting finding wherein delayed application of Phosphorous than usual application at planting enhanced growth (biomass), nutrients (NPK) uptake, and their use efficiencies. These were partly related to root morphological adaptations related to P acquisition and mineralization of organic P due to ACP and ALP activities in the rhizosphere.
The study seemed planned and executed nicely, and the results are presented well with sound discussion.
I observed some minor errors that are highlighted below:
L 36: Insert head ‘Introduction’ and number the heads and subheads with the following bold, italics, etc.
L 40: Cite the reference as per the standard format of the journal i.e., in numerical order. Refer to the authors' guidelines.
L 195: It is better to separate the head statistics from the calculation of different parameters. Place statistical analysis at the end of M&M.
L 259: replace ‘between’ with ‘among’.
Follow the same in the other figure captions too.
L 345-347: Include in the figure caption the elaborated form of PUE/NUE/KUE and P application time at 0, 7…..NP. The caption should be in such a way that anyone can read and get all information if a figure is extracted and read separately as an image.
L 429: Figure 2 shall be shifted to the result in the section between figure 1 and figure 3 instead of placing it in the discussion.
L 555: author must follow: …..need to be validated ‘in the whole cycle field study’ before this strategy….
L 574: Authors must check the references and format them as per the journal's specifications.
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Reviewer 3 Report
Review on “Proper delay of phosphorus application promotes wheat growth and nutrient uptake under low phosphorus condition”.
Generally, I think that the topic of the paper is very interesting and has great importance in wheat production. However, the manuscript needs improvement before publication. Many details are missing in the Materials and Methods section questions the correctness of the research data. In addition, the manuscript contains many typing, spelling, and grammar errors. Please check the whole manuscript carefully.
Specific comments:
Please identify every abbreviation when first used.
Abstract:
e.g. Line 19, what does „d” mean? I think it means the day so please write it out fully when first used.
Line 23-24. Please check the significant difference. I am not sure that a 0.31-0.36% increase can be significant.
Line 25. Do not use the uppercase letter for Rhizosphere.
Line 26. What does PNP mean?
Line 26. Delete “respectively”.
Keywords: Please organize the keywords in alphabetical order. Delete “Introduction”.
Introduction:
The title of this section is in the keywords, please replace it.
Line 67-68. Please double-check the diameter of the roots because I am pretty sure that they are not correct.
Line 68. A full stop is missing at the end of the sentence.
Line 75: Do not use upper case letters for phosphorus.
Line 97. When the authors state that “many studies have shown” two references are not sufficient. Please use five references at least to prove their statement.
Line 104, 107, 108, etc. Please check the correct presentation of the 5th 7th, 17th, etc in the whole manuscript.
Materials and Methods:
Line 134. Please present the name of the used hybrid or variety.
Table 1. What do the abbreviations mean in the table? Please present the full name of every abbreviation below the table.
Line 154-155. How long (days) were the seed germinated? What was the humidity? The authors must be more precise when they present the experimental circumstances.
Line 156. Please add the dimensions of the pots.
In line 133 the authors wrote “greenhouse” while in line 160 they used glasshouse. Please be consistent and use the same for the place of the experiment.
Line 163. How long was taken the drying? (days)
Line 164. Please correct: The weight of the above-ground part of each treatment was measured. Please add the producer, the origin, etc. of the analytical scale that was used for measuring the dry weight.
Line 164. How the authors did collect the root exudates?
Line 166-167. This is not an appropriate way for storing fresh roots and the authors did not provide enough information. Did the authors add any fluid materials (water? alcohol?) into the storage bags? How long were the roots stored in the fridge before the root length was was measurement?
Line 170-172. Based on this sentence there is no exact information that was the diameter of “fine” roots presented. Win-RHIZO is a perfect softer to obtain many data using only one image. So I do not understand the authors present only four parameters. Fine roots indeed play a most significant role in nutrient and water uptake but results related to the length of other diameter roots would be also important.
Please reanalyze the scanned images and present the total root length, the root length based on different root diameters, the total root surface, and the total root volume.
How the authors did calculate the specific root length presented in Figure S1?
Line 197. I do not understand why this calculation was used. Win-Rhizo can measure the total root length and the length of fine roots too.
Line 208: Please correct the root-to-shoot ratio in the whole manuscript.
Line 209: Please delete etc. and specify all parameters.
Line 232, 235, 240. Why is Figure 2 presented in the Discussion section and not here where the authors analyze the results?
Please add the number of repetitions of the measured parameters below every table and figure.
Discussion:
This section is too long. The authors must focus on their research goal and the measured parameters and discuss only them. e.g. Line 510-518=>delete. There is no connection with this study. The authors did not define the comparison or analysis of the different P measurement methods as a goal.
Line 362: Does “rhizobox” refers to Duijnen’s or the authors’ experiments? Based on the Materials and Method the authors used „pots” for their experiment so how can they compare the pot experiment with a rhizobox experiment? These are two different breeding vessels with different experimental goals.
Line 368-371: The authors can’t state this. Please use references for this statement.
Line 397: What is the ’visible root length”?
Line 472: Do not use “maybe, maybe” in a scientific paper. The authors obtained data during their research and using those they should prove or not prove the goal of this study.
Conclusions:
Rewrite. Line 543-549 is the repetition of the results. The authors should focus on the conclusions.
References: Please check and correct the format of the references based on the journal’s requirements.
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Reviewer 4 Report
The authors prepared the article based on greenhouse experience. The merits of the study include a good analytical side. The paper confirms the importance of applying phosphorus during the growing season in case of phosphorus deficiency. However, in practice, topdressing with phosphorus is recommended in order to achieve adequate abundance of this nutrient in the soil.
Comments:
- no information on when the study was conducted (year) and whether it was only one series or more
- how were the fertilizers applied - soil, foliar?; under field conditions, phosphorus needs to be mixed with the soil - in the experiment they were applied at the time of sowing (planting) and after 7, 14 and 21 days
- soil with a narrow C/N ratio was selected for the study; which was the reason for the high abundance of total nitrogen
- Literature cited inconsistently - in the text there should be consecutive publication numbers and not the names of the Authors
- List of publications by order of citation and not by alphabet
- Method of citation inconsistent with the requirements of the journal
Other comments on the References
Line 47/48: Johnston et al. 2014 – lack in „References”
Line 420/421: Bergamn et al. 2020 – lack in „References”
Line 435: Brinch Petersen et al. 2002 - lack in „References”
Line 638: Kruse J, Abraham M, Amelung W, et al. (2015) – no citation in the text of the article
Line 694: Persson H A. (1983) – no citation in the text of the article
Other comments:
Line 40: Ashley K et al. – Ashley et al.
Line 73: Kitajima and Poorter. 2010 - Kitajima and Poorter 2010
Line 75: Liu et al 2020 - Liu et al. 2020
Line 79: Hebrien and Neal. 1990 -Hebrien and Neal 1990
Line 101: Römer and Schilling. 1986 - Römer and Schilling 1986
Line 111: Rideout and Gooden. (2000) - Rideout and Gooden (2000)
Line 138/139: Pansu and Gautheyrou. 2006 - Pansu and 139 Gautheyrou 2006
Line 367: Mollier and Pellerin. 1999 - Mollier and Pellerin 1999
Line 396: Mollier and Pellerin. 1999 - Mollier and Pellerin 1999
Line 414: Yuan and Chen. 2012 - Yuan and Chen 2012
Line 437: Tarafdar and Jungk. 1987 - Tarafdar and Jungk 1987
Line 455: Tarafdar and Jungk. 1987 - Tarafdar and Jungk 1987
Line 523: Römer and Schilling. 1986 - Römer and Schilling 1986
Line 531/532: Lynch and Brown. 2001 - Lynch and Brown 2001
Line 537: Lynch. 2011 – Lynch 2011
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
Dear Authors,Pls. go through the submitted manuscript carefully and revise its abstract, and introduction portion.
Several errors were found such as the use of the symbol directly does not make sense. Use full form first for its better understanding.
Statistical representation should be consistent. Use a few data values to represent your results in the abstract.
Make your manuscript qualitative for worldwide readers. Go through the whole manuscript carefully.
Regards.
Comments for author File: Comments.pdf
Author Response
Thank you very much for your valuable comments. The attachment is my reply.
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Reviewer 3 Report
Thank you for the corrections.
Author Response
Thank you again for your valuable opinions and your careful and patient attitude, which is of great significance to us.
