Effects of Two Biochar Types on Mitigating Drought and Salt Stress in Tomato Seedlings

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Intensive English editing is necessary

-          Below is an example – there is something missing in terms of the sentence construction

“Simultaneously, biochar application compensated more than 9.86% and 24.37% damage caused”         

-          Also the word “the” could and even should be omitted in various places

Example – “… agriculture always are confronted with the chemical fertilizers and environmental stress …” -  by omitting “the” it will read much better

-          “When severe drought occurs in the critical water need period of crop, it may even cause heavy grain abortion … “ -  in this case heavy is not a good scientific word and could be improved by writing: …. even cause a high level of grain abortion

-          “Harvest index of the maize was dipped by 30.3 60 and 92.9% ….” - where dipped is not a good scientific word – these are only a few examples from the first 60 lines of the article.

-          In general it was very difficult to concentrate on the scientific value of the article due to the poor English

-          I also marked a few places which is to me an indication of poor attention to detail – on such an example is “brought” where it should have been drought.

 

Some general comments on style

-          Not sure if it is the way the document was saved, but some botanical names of crops are not in italics

-          There is often no space between the word before a bracket and the bracket belonging to the refences – as example “….stress and ion toxicity(Liang et al, 2022; Parida and Das, 2005).”

 

Some specific corrections needed

-          Table 1 – please indicated the units for EC, C, N, P and K content, surface area, total ash, volatile matter and C stability. Also, is pH from a water or HCl extraction method?

-          Figure 1 – the data in the graphs is for 60 days, but in the title of the figure it says 26 October 2021 to 23 December 2022? That is far more than 60 days? Maybe it should have been 26 October to 23 December 2021?

-          I have highlighted some corrections in the document itself

-          No references are made in the text about Table 2 and Figure 2.

-          Do not agree with the graphs in Figure 2 and 3. For the parameters in figure 2 – there is no interactions for H, DM, DL or SLA according to table 2. Thus for H, we need to see the sole effects of water and salinity and not what is presented in figure 2 for H. Similar there is are only two way interactions for DR and Rrs – again not reflected in the graphs in Figure 2

-          Figure 2 – DM as example – make sure about allocation of uppercase letters. CKDS2 and B1DS2 have an A but is lower than CKFS2 which has a B? Also check the lower case letter allocation for height, uppercase and lowercase allocation for DR, DL, Rr/s and SLA. This might be due to the fact that this is not the correct figures for the different parameters.

-          Figure 3 for An is not correct, since there was only a BxS interaction and not the tri-interaction of BxSxW. By adding W for An, it is difficult to follow the discussion given by the authors. The same is true for Tr and gs - This might be due to the fact that this is not the correct figures for the different parameters.

-          All the remainder of the results are also given in terms of the values for a three way interaction, even thought it was only true for LWP and Xaba. Due to this I have stopped reading the article.

Author Response

Dear reviewers and editors,

Thank you for your constructive comments, which have helped improve our manuscript. We have revised the manuscript after carefully considering the reviewers’ comments. Please see our responses below. Detailed modifications have been marked in the manuscript. Please see the attachment.

For Review1

1. Intensive English editing is necessary

 Response: A native English speaker has helped to improve language.

1.1 -          Below is an example – there is something missing in terms of the sentence construction

“Simultaneously, biochar application compensated more than 9.86% and 24.37% damage caused”    

 Response: Revised. (P1, Line 24-27) 

1.2 -          Also the word “the” could and even should be omitted in various places

Example – “… agriculture always are confronted with the chemical fertilizers and environmental stress …” -  by omitting “the” it will read much better

 Response: Corrected.

1.3 -          “When severe drought occurs in the critical water need period of crop, it may even cause heavy grain abortion … “ -  in this case heavy is not a good scientific word and could be improved by writing: …. even cause a high level of grain abortion.

 Response: Revised.

1.4 -          “Harvest index of the maize was dipped by 30.3 60 and 92.9% ….” - where dipped is not a good scientific word – these are only a few examples from the first 60 lines of the article.

 Response: We replaced “has dipped” with “declined”.

1.5 -          In general it was very difficult to concentrate on the scientific value of the article due to the poor English

 Response: A native English speaker has helped to improve language.

-          I also marked a few places which is to me an indication of poor attention to detail – on such an example is “brought” where it should have been drought.

 Response:Corrected.

2. Some general comments on style

2.1 -          Not sure if it is the way the document was saved, but some botanical names of crops are not in italics

 Response: Changed to “The tomato (Solanum lycopersicum) seeds (cv. Ailsa Craig) ”.(P4, Line 109)

2.2 -          There is often no space between the word before a bracket and the bracket belonging to the refences – as example “….stress and ion toxicity(Liang et al, 2022; Parida and Das, 2005).”

 Response: Corrected. Citation format was totally changed as the journal’s requirement.

3. Some specific corrections needed

3.1 -          Table 1 – please indicated the units for EC, C, N, P and K content, surface area, total ash, volatile matter and C stability. Also, is pH from a water or HCl extraction method?

 Response: Done. pH is from the CaCl₂ extraction method referred to as ISO 10390: 2005-12.(P3, Table 1)

3.2 -          Figure 1 – the data in the graphs is for 60 days, but in the title of the figure it says 26 October 2021 to 23 December 2022? That is far more than 60 days? Maybe it should have been 26 October to 23 December 2021?

 Response: Corrected. The experiment was undertaken in 2021. (P3, Line 98)

3.3 -          I have highlighted some corrections in the document itself

 Response: Thank you.

3.4 -          No references are made in the text about Table 2 and Figure 2.

 Response: Corrected as per the other tables and figures. (P6, Line 200 & 202; P8, Line 244 & 246 & 257; P9, Line 285; P10, Line 314; )

3.5 -          Do not agree with the graphs in Figure 2 and 3. For the parameters in figure 2 – there is no interactions for H, DM, DL or SLA according to table 2. Thus for H, we need to see the sole effects of water and salinity and not what is presented in figure 2 for H. Similar there is are only two way interactions for DR and Rrs – again not reflected in the graphs in Figure 2

3.6 -          Figure 2 – DM as example – make sure about allocation of uppercase letters. CKDS2 and B1DS2 have an A but is lower than CKFS2 which has a B? Also check the lower case letter allocation for height, uppercase and lowercase allocation for DR, DL, Rr/s and SLA. This might be due to the fact that this is not the correct figures for the different parameters.

3.6 -          Figure 3 for An is not correct, since there was only a BxS interaction and not the tri-interaction of BxSxW. By adding W for An, it is difficult to follow the discussion given by the authors. The same is true for Tr and gs - This might be due to the fact that this is not the correct figures for the different parameters.

3.7 -          All the remainder of the results are also given in terms of the values for a three way interaction, even thought it was only true for LWP and Xaba. Due to this I have stopped reading the article.

 Response to 3.5, 3.6 &3.7: Thanks for your comments. We have redrawn the figures as suggested and rewritten the results. (Line 198- 319)

Bests,

Wenqian Zhang.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

Dear Editor and authors, the manuscript is good, but needs improvements, especially in the discussion that is still incipient, so I suggest major revisions, below my suggestions:

- The Abstract is good, but the limit of Agronomy journal is 200 words, please reduce it.

- The format of all citations is incorrect, the authors need to verify the guidelines of Agronomy.

- The English is not enough, native speaker needs to correct the text of manuscript.

Introduction

-The authors need to highlight the effect of the stresses studied on tomatoes, they make many inferences with other crops and few with tomatoes.

- The sentence of line 83, must be incorporated into the text and must not be left free as it is

- In addition, the authors talk a lot about stress in plants, without discussing the impact on the seedling stage, they need to improve this part in order to be able to provide a basis for the objectives of the study.

 

Material and methods

-The Figure 1 can be moved as a supplementary document, as it is more additional information in the manuscript.

- How did the authors test biochar texture? (line 138) – did they make biochar with different texture?

- I think it is better for the author to mention that they tested different types of biochar as biochar are different not only in texture but also in chemical properties.

-The caption for table 2 is wrong as it talks about soil and biochar, and it appears that the data provided is for biochar only, please correct this.

-Line 141, the authors say that 70% of pot water 141 holding capacity, generally this is the value used for cultivation in pots, I think that 70% does not characterize a stress per se, as they determine that 70% is a stress condition, put current information and references that support this.

 

Discussion

-The authors need to show how the properties of biochars influenced the responses observed, in this part the discussion is very incipient.

-The discussion divided into topics is interesting in some articles, but in this case, the authors dividing the discussion, it is difficult to establish a cause and effect relationship. So I suggest redoing the discussion so that it can be more fluid. In addition, as mentioned, the discussion is very incipient. The authors should address more the mechanisms related to the properties of the materials that help to explain the observed effects, these mechanisms are mentioned previously in the introduction.

 

Conclusion

-The authors wrote “In conclusion, addition of biochar amendment is a promising method to promote tomato seedling growth both under reduced water supply and saline-alkali soil growing conditions”, so that would be the conclusion?

-Removing this part In conclusion part, because the topic is already conclusion.

Author Response

Dear reviewers and editors,

Thank you for your constructive comments, which have helped improve our manuscript. We have revised the manuscript after carefully considering the reviewers’ comments. Please see our responses below. Detailed modifications have been marked in the manuscript. Please see the attachment.

For Reviewer 2

1 Dear Editor and authors, the manuscript is good, but needs improvements, especially in the discussion that is still incipient, so I suggest major revisions, below my suggestions:

1.1 - The Abstract is good, but the limit of Agronomy journal is 200 words, please reduce it.

 Response: Done.

1.2 - The format of all citations is incorrect, the authors need to verify the guidelines of Agronomy.

 Response: The citation format has been corrected as the journal’s requirement.

1.3 - The English is not enough; native speaker needs to correct the text of manuscript.

2 Introduction

2.1 -The authors need to highlight the effect of the stresses studied on tomatoes, they make many inferences with other crops and few with tomatoes.

Response: We have focused on the stress effects on tomatoes. (Reference 9-11)

2.2 - The sentence of line 83, must be incorporated into the text and must not be left free as it is

 Response: Done.

2.3 - In addition, the authors talk a lot about stress in plants, without discussing the impact on the seedling stage, they need to improve this part in order to be able to provide a basis for the objectives of the study.

Response: The seedling stage is the most convenient stage to measure and observe plant growth and water relationships, so we choose this stage to explore biochar effects and focus on the impact, not the growth stage.

3 Material and methods

3.1 -The Figure 1 can be moved as a supplementary document, as it is more additional information in the manuscript.

 Response: Done.

3.2 - How did the authors test biochar texture? (Line 138) – did they make biochar with different texture?

 Response: The biochar manufacturers provided the information.

3.3 - I think it is better for the author to mention that they tested different types of biochar as biochar are different not only in texture but also in chemical properties.

 Response: We have mentioned that in the Material & Methods section.(P3, Line 100)

3.4 -The caption for table 2 is wrong as it talks about soil and biochar, and it appears that the data provided is for biochar only, please correct this.

 Response: Corrected. (P6, Line 223)

3.5 -Line 141, the authors say that 70% of pot water 141 holding capacity, generally this is the value used for cultivation in pots, I think that 70% does not characterize a stress per se, as they determine that 70% is a stress condition, put current information and references that support this.

 Response: At 70% water supply, the tomato plants suffered from water deficit and visibly wilted before being irrigated. (P3, Line 103-105)

For water supply, half the plants were kept at 90% pot WHC (full irrigation, FI) throughout the experiment, whereas the rest of the pots were irrigated daily with 70% of the FI water supply (deficit irrigation, DI).

4 Discussion

4.1 -The authors need to show how the properties of biochars influenced the responses observed, in this part the discussion is very incipient.

4.2 -The discussion divided into topics is interesting in some articles, but in this case, the authors dividing the discussion, it is difficult to establish a cause-and-effect relationship. So I suggest redoing the discussion so that it can be more fluid. In addition, as mentioned, the discussion is very incipient. The authors should address more the mechanisms related to the properties of the materials that help to explain the observed effects, these mechanisms are mentioned previously in the introduction.

Response 4.1 & 4.2: We have reorganized the Discussion and cited some context in the Introduction.(P10-11, Line 321-392)

5 Conclusion

5.1 -The authors wrote “In conclusion, addition of biochar amendment is a promising method to promote tomato seedling growth both under reduced water supply and saline-alkali soil growing conditions”, so that would be the conclusion?

5.2 -Removing this part In conclusion part, because the topic is already conclusion.

Response to 5.1 & 5.2: We have revised the Conclusion.  (P 2, Line 394-399)

 

Bests,

Wenqian Zhang.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 3 Report

The manuscript ''Effects of two different biochars on mitigating drought and salt stress on tomato plant at the seedling stage'' is an interesting work on biochar effectiveness in soil and water stress. However, there are some important points that need to be corrected.

- Authors state in the text: two types of biochar; wood biochar and fertilizer biochar -> Why you are saying ''fertilizer biochar'' instead of ''poultry manure'' everywhere? You used poultry manure as the second type of biochar. So you can simply say wood biochar (WB) and poultry manure biochar (PB). Isn't easy?

- Citation style is completely WRONG! References should be numbered in brackets. Please see the instructions for the author. 

- Table 1 is presenting biochar characteristics (CHN, surface area, ...). But there is nothing about methods or devices that are used for biochar analysis! So please add this information.

There are some small points in the text. please see the file.

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Dear reviewers and editors,

Thank you for your constructive comments, which have helped improve our manuscript. We have revised the manuscript after carefully considering the reviewers’ comments. Please see our responses below. Detailed modifications have been marked in the manuscript. Please see the attachment.

For Reviewer 3

The manuscript ''Effects of two different biochars on mitigating drought and salt stress on tomato plant at the seedling stage'' is an interesting work on biochar effectiveness in soil and water stress. However, there are some important points that need to be corrected.

Response: Thank you.

1. - Authors state in the text: two types of biochar; wood biochar and fertilizer biochar -> Why you are saying ''fertilizer biochar'' instead of ''poultry manure'' everywhere? You used poultry manure as the second type of biochar. So you can simply say wood biochar (WB) and poultry manure biochar (PB). Isn't easy?

Response: Accepted, with corresponding modifications in whole manuscript.

2. - Citation style is completely WRONG! References should be numbered in brackets. Please see the instructions for the author. 

Response: Accepted, with corresponding modifications. We change the citation format as the journal’s requirement.

3. - Table 1 is presenting biochar characteristics (CHN, surface area, ...). But there is nothing about methods or devices that are used for biochar analysis! So please add this information.

Response: The biochar manufacturer provided them; thus, they are listed in the basic information.

4. There are some small points in the text. please see the file.

Response: Thank you, with corresponding modification.

 

Bests,

Wenqian Zhang.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

The manuscript can be accepted in current form.

Reviewer 3 Report

The authors effectively have improved the manuscript and therefore it can be published. 

Good Luck!