Effect of Conservation Management on Oxisol in a Sugarcane Area Under a Pre-Sprouted Seedling System

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report (Previous Reviewer 1)

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The adoption of conservation tillage in Sugarcane has immense beneficial impact on both soil and environment. Nice research. 

Reviewer 2 Report (Previous Reviewer 2)

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

TITLE: I think that the words "sugarcane area" don’t fit perfectly into the title. It is not informative to the audience, maybe to use soil type instead as an indication which could better describe the production conditions - Typic  Eutrudox soil or even better “Oxisol”

INTRODUCTION. Please add a few sentences about the difference between conservation tillage in sugarcane and classical field crop production as sugar cane is considered a biannual crop

MATERIALS AND METHODS.

Figure 1a needs some adjustments about how to connect/relate A picture and B in this figure or how to include the arrangement of treatments in the experimental area shown at the location of the experiment presented in the same Figure

Regarding CT treatments- please explain what exactly is conventional tillage (business as usual) with disking vs. CT with plowing/chiseling. Also, put an explanation of why the depth used in this study is 40cm. Is it common for sugar cane?

Discussion

LINE 483: “surface trash” please correct what is the meaning of that

LINE 546-548: “Nevertheless, differences between the methods after the harvest of the sugarcane plant are an innovation brought about by the use of Rip Strip®, as there are still no results of its use in sugarcane” Please clarify this sentence

LINE 556: “….for both the producer and the environment” Please remove the end of this sentence as the environmental aspect was not assessed in this study

CONCLUSION

Please avoid statements regarding stalk yield/comparison as this study did not offer clear evidence and statistical confirmation about the effects of the tillage system only among years. 

LINE: 570-571 “The adaptation of Rip Strip® for sugarcane was valid, maintaining the degree of soil  compaction throughout the cycles…” It should be about decreasing compaction in soil not increasing ?

 

 

The authors have to reorder the literature numbers in the text and literature section!!!

Author Response

Comments in annex

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report (Previous Reviewer 3)

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The correction is acceptable, and it can be published.

 

Author Response

Thank you

This manuscript is a resubmission of an earlier submission. The following is a list of the peer review reports and author responses from that submission.

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Needs revision as mentioned in the attached file.

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Comments on the Quality of English Language

Needs some improvement.

Author Response

The answers to the reviewers' questions are in the document "Cover-letter and Respond reviewer" 

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Dear Authors,

Thank you for the opportunity to review your manuscript. Here are the impressions on your work.

The research paper has a fair degree of novelty and could advance knowledge in the selected area, however, the rationale and objectives should be better defined and presented.  Methods are appropriate, and standard for this type of study as well as statistical analyses.  Interpretation of the results has to be better and should include more details.  The presentation of the results and design can be improved.  

TITLE: It is not common to use "conservationist" term and there it could be replaced with a more appropriate term. According to Merriam-Webster CONSERVATIONIST is a person who advocates conservation, especially of natural resources. This implies that farmers are committed in nature protection and resources but in this context, it is only with the tillage but what about the other activities? In the context of this paper, it is more a comparison of conservation and classical practices.  

ABSTRACT: there are certain overlaps in the abstract because the tillage methods and the parameters that are investigated are mentioned in the research objective and again as methodology. This could be clarified by briefly explaining the goal without specifying details and by elaborating on the research methodology.

INTRODUCTION

Please add a brief explanation about sugarcane cycles and it relevance in crop production, crop rotation and what does it mean in practice (sugarcane cycles). 

LINE: 52 "..minimal soil revolving.."  if it's related to tillage it could be an inversion, disturbing....

The authors should also add and clearly state the limitation of the study and the strength of the argument presented.  

MATERIALS  AND METHODS

Figure 1. Title under the (B) abbreaviatin CT, CTS, MT...are not related to those abbreviations under the B in the picture.

LINE 88: Minimum and maximum temperatures? for which period and which temperature is air, be more specific and clear, what is altitude ???

LINE 89: Specify exactly precipitation for which period is it long-term average or hydrological period ???

LINE 104: What is RS stage? Add explanation

LINE 110: Where the transplants were produced any specific characteristics?

LINE 124: instead of inches use international units

LINE 127-129: Which machinery was used for subsoil up to 45 cm and how they affect soil compaction and structure

LINE 165: instead of  “deformed samples” disturbed samples
LINE 185 : “Grain yield during both cycles was determined at the time of harvesting..” how do you determine the grain yield of sugarcane and the time of harvesting ???
LINE 215-216: How the dry root biomass was separated from the soil in the probe

How did you decide about the time for sampling the  soil for specific indices “collection time” ? Why only 3 sampling times for soil physical properties?

I would like also to check and assess the soil's chemical properties, particularly Nitrogen or to refer to papers where they are published.

 

RESULTS

LINE 239: Are there any initial sampling results for comparison to better understand the changes?

LINE 272: “Soil structural quality “– please consider using soil structural stability and corresponding indices

LINE 293-295: Based on which data this observation has been made. The results is about the soil compaction but not the soil structure

For soil properties there were 4 sampling campaigns and for the root measurement 8 sampling why were those sampling are not connected

LINE 380: Can you add the standard deviation for the obtained sugarcane yield

 

DISCUSSION

LINE: 394-395: Sampling was done in March 2017 and then in April 2018 what happens during that period that can impact changes in TP. Which crop or plants were present any weeds? Can you also include climatic conditions in this discussion?  It is not quite clear the methodological approach  - if you sample soil after soybean that’s effects of soybean with different tillage and traffic of machinery. So more traffic more compaction with sugarcane, but it is not quite a clear relationship between traffic and time of sampling.

LINE 417: “deep tillage has lower densities and higher soil porosities” Please rephrase to be understandable

Generally author refers to soil structure but some indirect indices were assessed here not soil structure itself

LINE 458-459:  It could be the authors' assumption that “that the use of NT was favorable for the soil structure, obtaining the highest values of root  biomass in the 0.80–1.00 m layer …” since we do not know any other soil properties that can support this hypothesis. In addition to that how to explain that no-till has effects on soil depth up to 1m? It could be the opposite that where the tillage has been applied the root remains within the tillage depth.  Particularly after one year of application.

 

CONCLUSION

Concise. Add practical relevance to this research.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Comments on the Quality of English Language

The manuscript could benefit from language editing. 

Author Response

The answers to the reviewers' questions are in the document "Cover-letter and Respond reviewer" 

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The authors studied the “Effect of a conservationist management on soil quality in sug-2 arcane area under pre-sprouted seedling system”. The title is interesting; however, the results are not novel. Because the effect of tillage systems on soil compaction and porosity is well known in literature. The references relevant to tillage systems need to include in introduction.  Discussion is poor and in some cases are incorrect. For example, it’s clear that the traffic of machines increases soilcompaction and as a result of this, TP decreases. Detailed description is available as bellow:

Lines 23-29: the results are not novel.

Lines 45, 48 and 59: “Conservational: rather than “Conservationist”.

Lines 69-70: the hypothesis is not novel.

The introduction does not provide sufficient background, for example The effect of tillage systems on soil attributes and yield was not cited in this section. Some references are proposed to help:

http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/ldr.4221

Line 180: The samples were taken to the greenhouse at 105 °C or oven?

Lines 136-152: why XRD analysis was made?

Lines 192-202: why proctor test was made?

Line 254: rewrite the sentence. What’s the mean “of and of”?

Lines 250-257: these results are not novel.

Lines 256: 0.51 and 0.47 m3 m−3 are not true.

Lines 260-261: the sentences are not true, because degradation the soil structure and microporosity increases, however TP decreases, especially.

Line 263: the sentence “CTS presented an increase in compaction, represented by a higher TP” is not true, compaction decreases the TP. CTS may increase aggregation and consequently Higher TP.

Lines 264-265: the sentences are not true, because everyone expect after the traffic of the harvester increases compaction and as a result of this, TP decreases.

Lines 279-281:  why did micropores decrease? when compaction occurs micropores will increase.

Lines 397-398: Fe2O3 is similar in all treatments and its effect on TP, soil structure, bulk density, etc. is not different in tillage systems.

Lines 405-411: the hypothesis is not novel, and it’s clear that CS increase soil compaction and bulk density and consequently total porosity and macropores decreases and vice versa for conservational tillage systems and deep tillage. These results have been demonstrated in literature again and again, for example lines 412-420, 449-453.

Lines 457-467: this section shows that the effect of tillage systems on root biomass is not novel.

Comments on the Quality of English Language

some correction is needed.

Author Response

The answers to the reviewers' questions are in the document "Cover-letter and Respond reviewer" 

Reviewer 4 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Attached as  file

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Comments on the Quality of English Language

The language should be revised by an English speaker. In my view some sentences and terms do not seem well expressed.

Author Response

The answers to the reviewers' questions are in the document "Cover-letter and Respond reviewer"