Soil Health Assessment to Evaluate Conservation Practices in SemiArid Cotton Systems at Producer Site Scale

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

General Comments:

This study indicates that covering crops and no tillage can enhance the potential for agricultural sustainability in water deficient environments by improving soil health indicators. However, there is a problem of improper use of words in certain sentences, and the evidence is insufficient. Moreover, there are some format problems. Therefore, it needs to be modified.

 

Specific Comments:

1. Title: It should be changed to:Soil health assessment to assess producer protection measures.

2. Line 12: Delete: To provide timely feedback to land managers.

3. Line 28: Capacity should not be used together with complex.

4. Line 38-40: This sentence is inconsistent with the meaning of the cited literature.

5. Line 53: Recommended references (doi.org/10.1016/j.chemosphere.2022.133619; doi.org/10.3389/fpls.2022.986763) should be cited to support this viewpoint in Line 53 and Line 79, respectively.

6. Line 56-60: What is the relationship between SOM and baseline SOM stocks?

7. Line 77: Attributes should be changed to functions or capability.

8. Line 215-216: Delete the response in this sentence

9. Line 265: What is the relationship between total C and diferences in clay content?

10. Line 373-375: There is a Syntax error in this sentence

11. Tables & Figures: The text format of Tables 1, 2, and 3 should be consistent.

Well english language and easy to understand.

Author Response

Please see the attachment.  Thank you for your comments to improve the manuscript. 

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

The manuscript reports an on-farm study on soil health indicators changes due to the introduction of no-tillage and cover crop in cotton cultivation in semi-arid Southern High Plains (USA). Although the relevance of the topic and the adequacy of presentation, the manuscript needs some changes to improve its scientific soundness and to better visualize main findings.

General and specific comments:

-          Line 97-117: please summarize these paragraphs and move the detailed information to the Mat&met section. The objectives of the study should be clearly stated (e.g. 1 - effects of two year transition on soil health, 2 - trends over time, 3 – maybe methodological aspects related to soil indicators or to on farm monitoring?)

-          Line 153-161 and Table 1: the authors should simplify the presentation of the “second part” study. It is not important the reason of excluding fields in some years but to provide the general picture (which field/management were analysed and how many replications for each system). “Cropping history” should be only presented when the trend is investigated

-          Table 1: please delete the information about the different labelling (column 1 and 2) and simplify the “soil properties” with the use of classes. Also see previous comment on “Cropping history”.

-          Statistics: one important aspect is related to the statistics. How many replicates are available for ANOVA reported in Table 2? Maybe “Tilled” treatment value could be used as reference value and not included in the ANOVA

Author Response

Please see the attachment.  Thank you for your comments to improve the manuscript. 

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

Dear editor, I have evaluated the manuscript entitled:  Soil health assessment to evaluate conservation practices in 2 semi-arid cotton systems at producer site scale.

In general, the manuscript is well written. However, there are some points should be taken into consideration before publication.

-          The abstract should provide more highlights into the most significant findings of the study.

-          The introduction should highlight strategies for improving soil carbon sink in arid and semi-arid regions. In this regard, this recent reference is highlighting this point:

10.3390/su15021206

-          Authors should provide more details regarding the strategy of sites selection and sampling.

-          There is a wide range of parameters for evaluating soil health. Please illustrate the concept of selecting oil health criteria in your study.

-          The effect of adopted water strategies on soil health parameters should be discussed with biochemical point of view.

The quality of writing is acceptable.

Author Response

Please see the attachment.  Thank you for your comments to improve the manuscript. 

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

The authors have sufficiently addressed comments and suggestions made during the first round of review. I recommend to accept the paper to be published in Soil Systems