Influence of Recurrent Rolling/Crimping on Cover Crop Termination, Soil Strength and Yield in No-Till Cotton
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
- If available, the author should consider presenting the lint yield alongside with the seed yield of cotton, as cotton is mainly cultivated for its fibers.
- In the Abstract and in the Materials and Methods, the author should mention that the “1, 2 and 3 times” were conducted at the same day, to avoid misunderstanding.
- In lines 155-156, the author should maintain a consistency regarding this treatment. At the results, the Figures mention the treatments as “Non-traffic” and “Wheel Traffic”. It is suggested to use the same names and at this part of the manuscript.
- In line 11, “weeks days” consider revising.
- In lines 111 and 115 something went wrong with the double bullets.
- In line 129, the ** do not refer to any explanation or something else.
- In line 138, the author should mention that the four replications are presented with the name BLOCKS at the Tables of the results.
- In Table 3, consider revising “*DF”.
- In Table 5, the formatting can be improved. For example, the column 2015-7 could be wider in order to have all data in one line instead of two. The line under “2-stage roller crimper” should be removed or else a similar line could be added under the other treatments.
- An explanation of “CI”, “GMC”, “N/S”, “DB” and any other abbreviation should be added in all relevant Tables and Figures.
- Add top and bottom line in the “Seed cotton yield averaged over treatments” line of Table 6.
- In lines 472-474, consider revising.
Author Response
REVIEWER #1
Comments and Suggestions for Authors
If available, the author should consider presenting the lint yield alongside with the seed yield of cotton, as cotton is mainly cultivated for its fibers.
Response: Lint yield is reported in addition to seed cotton yield. Reference (below) was added to confirm percentage lint (42%) in seed cotton yield:
Glass, K.M.; Delaney, D.P.; Monks, C.D; Brasher, J. Performance of Cotton Varieties in Alabama, 2017. https://ssl.acesag.auburn.edu/anr/crops/varietytesting/documents/2017PerformanceofCottonVarietiesinAlabama.pdf
In the Abstract and in the Materials and Methods, the author should mention that the “1, 2 and 3 times” were conducted at the same day, to avoid misunderstanding.
Response: On line 17 (abstract) and 125 (materials and methods) this statement was added.
In lines 155-156, the author should maintain a consistency regarding this treatment. At the results, the Figures mention the treatments as “Non-traffic” and “Wheel Traffic”. It is suggested to use the same names and at this part of the manuscript.
Response: It was checked throughout the manuscript maintaining terms “Non-traffic” and “wheel traffic”.
In line 11, “weeks days” consider revising.
Response: Lines 11 - 13. changed to: “is typically planted three weeks after a rolled cover crop reaches more than 90% termination rate which eliminates competition with the cash crop for water and nutrients.”
In lines 111 and 115 something went wrong with the double bullets.
Response: Lines 112-116: Corrected and reported as a sentence instead of bullets.
In line 129, the ** do not refer to any explanation or something else.
Response: This was a typo. It has been removed.
In line 138, the author should mention that the four replications are presented with the name BLOCKS at the Tables of the results:
Response: on line 140: added wording: “presented in tables as BLOCKS”
In Table 3, consider revising “*DF”.
Response: line 200 and in table 2 revised as DF (Degrees of Freedom).
In Table 5, the formatting can be improved. For example, the column 2015-7 could be wider in order to have all data in one line instead of two. The line under “2-stage roller crimper” should be removed or else a similar line could be added under the other treatments.
Response: Line 257. Now is table 4. Format changed so data is displayed on the one line.
An explanation of “CI”, “GMC”, “N/S”, “DB” and any other abbreviation should be added in all relevant Tables and Figures.
Response: Explanation of abbreviations “CI”, “GMC”, “N/S”, “DB” has been added.
Add top and bottom line in the “Seed cotton yield averaged over treatments” line of Table 6.
Response: line 270, now is table 5. Modified Table 5 as there were no treatment effects, so yield was averaged over treatments within each growing season and these results have been reported. This was suggested by another reviewer.
In lines 472-474, consider revising.
Response: Revised (removed this statement)
Reviewer 2 Report
Overall, this research is of merit and findings are worth publishing. However, the manuscript is poorly written due to unclear terminology, repetitive data in Tables and figures, lengthy and unnecessary text. This manuscript need to be revised significantly to be publishable. Below are more specific comments. The author might benefit from having internal reviewers more familiar with the soil aspects to proof read the writing.
Pg 1 Ln 11: confusing, do you mean weeks or days.
It is not clear if one just read the abstract about what 2, 3, 4-stage and spiral roller are. Can you briefly describe in the abstract? It is also not clear what the % are. You mean 94% dead or alive? Ln 21: when you said control (37%) do you mean the untreated control or the smooth roller?
Ln 24-26: This sentence again is very vague, clarify if you mean: Using roller-crimper increased soil compaction and resulted in soil strength exceeding a critical value of 2 MPa and will restrict root penetration rate at the 15 cm deep root zone, and decreased GMC compared to the unrolled control?
Ln 44: this is a common confusion throughout the manuscript, what is 96% and 98% termination rates mean? Is it cover crop death or survive. Can’t assume reader know what this mean.
Ln 65: rewrite: because it degraded soil structure which often time is difficult to assess from the top soil layers. Ln 69: what is soil strength? Is it Soil compaction? Later on ln 74 and ln 88 you did go back to use the terminology soil compaction, which make much better sense. Please correct this throughout the manuscript. Current writing is too confusing.
Ln 103: can you cite data much later than 2013. We are in 2020 now.
Writing objectives in bullet point form is not acceptable for scientific publication. Please rewrite ln 110-116 in complete sentence. It is also puzzling that why the indicator is only soil compaction and GMC and disregarding soil water infiltration as you mentioned. If you have good justification, it’s time to justify it in the introduction why only these two parameters are sufficient.
Some citation format seems odd (e.g. ln 123). The author need to proof read the manuscript.
Why do you call “soil strength” instead of soil compaction? Occasionally it is referred to as soil compaction.
Rye termination rate is also a strange term. Should define all these unusual terminologies for readers to understand instead of asking reader to figure them out.
Format of most Tables are poorly prepared. Horizontal lines are messy. You shouldn’t share three lines in column 1 while having three separate rows for all other columns. Difficult to follow.
If no yield difference was detected by treatment, just delete Table 6 and delete two lengthy paragraphs describing block and year differences. All can simply be written in a text to address this. The author also keeps calling out all the numerical data presented in tables into the text. There is no need to be overly repetitive of data value in the text when data is presented. Table 2 is redundant as it can be all described clearly in the text as it is.
Overall, the results section need to be more precise and focused on specific objectives.
The author also need to be careful to use abbreviation in Table (caption or its content) without defining it in the table. All tables are meant to be stand alone. E.g. what CI in table 7?
Over all this manuscript is not polished for publication. If the CI was not affected by main treatment, no need to discuss CI is different due to all other factors not related to your objectives. No difference is good, that means roller/crimper do not cause soil compaction. That’s it. Currently you wrote from ln 277-304 and not even mentioned clearly that there is no increase in soil compaction affected by roller/crimper types, number of passes in all soil depth tested. Contradict to the CI and soil moisture data you present later which suggested otherwise. Very confusing.
This type of writing style is repeated throughout the manuscript. The author should at least have other scientists to review this manuscript before returning the revision. Ln 306-309: this is materials and methods, not results. Again no need to write ANOVA table word by word in a lengthy text.
Fig. 6. Symbols between before and after are not obvious (visually, need more distinct symbols).
Another issue with this manuscript is the author repeated same data in Figures and in Tables. If significant interaction among factors exist, then just present the more detail data presentation, no need to repeated the same soil strength data in Figures and then in the table. If interaction occurs, you are not supposed to present the main factor alone.
Ln 467: inconsistent terminology is confusing, is curved roller same as spiral roller?
Author Response
REVIEWER #2
Comments and Suggestions for Authors
Overall, this research is of merit and findings are worth publishing. However, the manuscript is poorly written due to unclear terminology, repetitive data in Tables and figures, lengthy and unnecessary text. This manuscript need to be revised significantly to be publishable. Below are more specific comments. The author might benefit from having internal reviewers more familiar with the soil aspects to proof read the writing.
Pg 1 Ln 11: confusing, do you mean weeks or days.
Response: Lines 11 - 13. changed to: “is typically planted three weeks after a rolled cover crop reaches more than 90% termination rate which eliminates competition with the cash crop for water and nutrients.”
It is not clear if one just read the abstract about what 2, 3, 4-stage and spiral roller are. Can you briefly describe in the abstract?
Response: Lines 15-19. A brief description of each roller/crimper was added in the abstract.
It is also not clear what the % are. You mean 94% dead or alive? Ln 21: when you said control (37%) do you mean the untreated control or the smooth roller?
Response: Lines 20, 142-143, 219-259. Clarification was made regarding termination rates. The expression “termination rate” was changed with “kill rates”. Kill rate = 0% (zero) means 100% healthy plants, kill rate = 100% means 100% dead plants. Also, clarification was made regarding the control (untreated non-rolled cereal rye cover crop).
Ln 24-26: This sentence again is very vague, clarify if you mean: Using roller-crimper increased soil compaction and resulted in soil strength exceeding a critical value of 2 MPa and will restrict root penetration rate at the 15 cm deep root zone, and decreased GMC compared to the unrolled control?
Response: It was clarified and written on lines 25-28 as: “Rolling 2 or 3 times compared with rolling one time did not cause soil compaction. However, at the 15 cm depth cone index (CI) did exceed 2 MPa (a critical value of root penetration restriction); although this CI increase was solely related to decrease in gravimetric soil moisture content (GMC).”
Ln 44: this is a common confusion throughout the manuscript, what is 96% and 98% termination rates mean? Is it cover crop death or survive. Can’t assume reader know what this mean.
Response: Changed to kill rate of cereal rye cover crop.
Ln 65: rewrite: because it degraded soil structure which often time is difficult to assess from the top soil layers.
Response: Lines 66- 67: Rewritten as suggested.
Ln 69: what is soil strength? Is it Soil compaction? Later on ln 74 and ln 88 you did go back to use the terminology soil compaction, which make much better sense. Please correct this throughout the manuscript. Current writing is too confusing.
Response: Changed and explained the relationship between soil cone index (used throughout the manuscript) to quantify soil strength utilizing cone penetrometer to indicate soil-compaction. The standardized cone is pushed down through the soil and the penetration resistance force of the soil is measured. The soil reaction (resistance) force against the cone penetration is described as the soil strength.
Ln 103: can you cite data much later than 2013. We are in 2020 now.
Response: Lines 103-107. Information was updated (2017-2019) and references were updated accordingly.
Writing objectives in bullet point form is not acceptable for scientific publication. Please rewrite ln 110-116 in complete sentence.
Response: on lines 112-116 rewritten as suggested: “Therefore, the objectives of this study were to (1) determine the effectiveness of different roller/crimper designs in terminating cereal rye cover crop in single, double, and triple runs over the same cereal rye area; (2) determine effects of multiple rolling/crimping passes on soil compaction with associated gravimetric soil moisture content at two depths, and (3) evaluate the effects of different roller/crimpers on seed cotton yield in a conservation system.”
It is also puzzling that why the indicator is only soil compaction and GMC and disregarding soil water infiltration as you mentioned. If you have good justification, it’s time to justify it in the introduction why only these two parameters are sufficient.
Response: On lines 158-164, a statement was added: “Since the standing (untreated) cereal rye was the control (undisturbed area not subjected to external forces; i.e.; rolling and wheel traffic) and served as a reference point to the rolled plot area and wheel traffic, other parameters such as soil infiltration were not assessed. However, corresponding gravimetric soil moisture content (GMC) was measured for control plots at the same time cone index (CI) readings and GMC readings were collected for all plots so that the relationship between soil strength (CI) and GMC could be established at two soil depths (0-15 cm and 15-30 cm).”
Some citation format seems odd (e.g. ln 123). The author need to proof read the manuscript.
Response: It was proof-read by another scientist.
Expressed Why do you call “soil strength” instead of soil compaction? Occasionally it is referred to as soil compaction.
Response: It was already explained the relationship between soil strength and soil compaction.
Rye termination rate is also a strange term. Should define all these unusual terminologies for readers to understand instead of asking reader to figure them out.
Response: It was already changed from “termination rates” to “kill rates”.
Format of most Tables are poorly prepared. Horizontal lines are messy. You shouldn’t share three lines in column 1 while having three separate rows for all other columns. Difficult to follow.
Response: Tables were improved by placing horizontal lines to separate data for better clarity.
If no yield difference was detected by treatment, just delete Table 6 and delete two lengthy paragraphs describing block and year differences. All can simply be written in a text to address this. The author also keeps calling out all the numerical data presented in tables into the text. There is no need to be overly repetitive of data value in the text when data is presented. Table 2 is redundant as it can be all described clearly in the text as it is.
Response: All these concerns and suggestions were addressed. Most of numerical data were removed from the text and results were discussed by referencing the tables. Table 2 was removed and content is described in the text.
Overall, the results section need to be more precise and focused on specific objectives.
The author also need to be careful to use abbreviation in Table (caption or its content) without defining it in the table. All tables are meant to be stand alone. E.g. what CI in table 7?
Response: CI and other abbreviations were clearly described.
Over all this manuscript is not polished for publication. If the CI was not affected by main treatment, no need to discuss CI is different due to all other factors not related to your objectives. No difference is good, that means roller/crimper do not cause soil compaction. That’s it.
Response: It is true that the main treatment was not significant at alpha = 0.05, because there was so much variability across the years and likely related to different climatic conditions between the years. However, since YEAR was highly significant, I looked at treatment effects for individual years instead of an average treatment effect across all years within years. Especially there was a trend on the TRT effect, and TRT was significant at alpha = 0.10 (P =0.0906).
On lines 341-349, the following statement was added: “Highly significant differences were observed in soil CI for variable YEAR, BLOCK, TIME, POS, and DEPTH. In contrast, across all growing seasons, no significant differences were detected among rolling treatments (TRT) at significant level α = 0.05 and there were no significant YEAR by TRT interactions. This was most likely caused by the variability across the years due to climate differences between the years. However, a trend was present between rolling and soil compaction and TRT was significant at α = 0.10 (P-value = 0.0906, Table 10). Since variable YEAR was highly significant, rolling treatment effect on soil compaction was reanalyzed again by YEAR for variables TRT and DEPTH before and after rolling on non-traffic (area inside plot) and on wheel traffic. Results are presented in Tables 11-16.”
Currently you wrote from ln 277-304 and not even mentioned clearly that there is no increase in soil compaction affected by roller/crimper types, number of passes in all soil depth tested. Contradict to the CI and soil moisture data you present later which suggested otherwise. Very confusing.
Response: It was rewritten as suggested.
This type of writing style is repeated throughout the manuscript. The author should at least have other scientists to review this manuscript before returning the revision. Ln 306-309: this is materials and methods, not results. Again no need to write ANOVA table word by word in a lengthy text.
Response: Corrections were made by removing P-values from text, and showing only statistics in ANOVA tables, while discussing it in text. Another scientist has reviewed the revised manuscript.
Fig. 6. Symbols between before and after are not obvious (visually, need more distinct symbols).
Response: Figures 6, 7, and 8 were removed.
Another issue with this manuscript is the author repeated same data in Figures and in Tables. If significant interaction among factors exist, then just present the more detail data presentation, no need to repeated the same soil strength data in Figures and then in the table. If interaction occurs, you are not supposed to present the main factor alone.
Response: The figures were removed and substituted with the tables, so there is no confusion what data are presented. Tables 14, 16, and 18 are showing CI value changes with depth.
Ln 467: inconsistent terminology is confusing, is curved roller same as spiral roller?
Response: Yes, the curved roller is the same as the spiral roller. Corrected throughout the text and kept the term “spiral roller”.
