Evaluation of Essential Oils and Their Blends on the Fermentative Profile, Microbial Count, and Aerobic Stability of Sorghum Silage

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

This study studied the effect of several essential oils and their blends on the fermentation characteristics of sorghum silage. Overall, this study provided much new and useful information, however minor revision is still needed.

 

1.    The data presented is less scientific. All experiments should have parallel results, and thereby, the data should be presented as ‘Mean ± SD (or SEM)’. The data presented in this article is a numerical value, and moreover, I am confused by the calculation of SEM, the penultimate column in the Tables.

2.    The first time an Abbreviation appears, please write the full name, and see MS in Line 121.

3. The value (-1) for (g kg-1) need to be superscripted in Line 87. 

 

Author Response

Attached.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

This study aims to evaluate the effect of these essential oils and their blends on the fermentative profile, losses by gases and effluents, nutritional value, microbial count, and aerobic stability of sorghum silage. The result shows that the Ros improved the nutritional quality and aerobic stability of sorghum silage, while the blend Ros+TT+Cit increased the lactic acid bacteria count in the silage. It is an interesting research work and will be useful for the readers of the journal. However, the manuscript also needs revisions. The detailed comments are as follows:

 

Specific comments:

 

The complete text has to have refined language. Please pay attention to the tense, single, and plural. The outcomes description is supposed to be in the past tense. Please carefully review the description of data analysis throughout the entire text.

 

Abstract

Please check the experimental design and procedures in detail, as well as the treatment methods used. Please adding the description of the effect of additives on microbial community.

L26, please change the conjunction, and change the position of the sentence "…this blend did not reduce sorghum silage losses.".

L27, please supplement the P-value in the sentence.

 

Introduction

L38-44, please provide a reference (s).

L53-54, please verify that EO and OE both refer to essential oil and rewrite this sentence.

 

 

Materials and methods

L100-107, if the essential oil is purchased commercially, please mark the specific production company; if it is extracted after purchase, specify the specific extraction process for reference in subsequent research.

L183-185, please explain in the corresponding position of "Discussion" why the temperature checked every 6 hours, and please verify grammatical problems both here and elsewhere.

 

Result

The main content of this article is the evaluation of fermentative profile, microbial count and aerobic stability, but the evaluation of fermentative profile in the result part is too brief.

L221, please add the description of data such as NFC in the result and discussion.

L233-235, lactic acid is one of the important indicators of silage fermentation, please add the significance analysis of lactic acid.

L252-255, please verify the authenticity of the data in this section.

 

Discussion

The discussion part is too short, please add more in-depth discussion on the result part.

Please modify the parts that need to be modified in the result to the discussion.

L302-305, please unify the abbreviations in the article with those in the figure.

L306-308, please provide a reference (s).

 

Conclusions

Pleas highlight key points.

 

References

Please increase the number of references.

L353-418, the reference DOI number should be included, and the reference format should be modified to match the target journal.

 

Table and figure

The format in each table needs to be modified. Please verify your data and correct unreasonable error bars and saliency marks in the figure.

Table 1-3, “P<0.05” in note should be in italics.

Figure 1-2, P-value in note should be in italics.

Figure 2, The color and style of the same processing in Figure 2a and Figure 2b should be the same, the horizontal coordinate of Figure 2b should be longer and the data expressed by the curve processed by Citronella is incomplete

Comments on the Quality of English Language

The complete text has to have refined language. Please pay attention to the tense, single, and plural. The outcomes description is supposed to be in the past tense. Please carefully review the description of data analysis throughout the entire text.

Author Response

Attac

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

See Attached

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Attached.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

There are still two questions, please see the attachment.

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Attached.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf