Sustainable Use of Citrus Waste as Organic Amendment in Orange Orchards

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments on the manuscript (MS) entitled "Sustainable Use of Citrus Waste as Organic Amendment and Biostimulant in Orange Orchards", submitted by the authors Consoli Simona, Caggia Cinzia, Russo Nunziatina, Randazzo Cinzia Lucia, Continella Alberto, Modica Giulia, Cacciola Santa Olga, Faino Luigi, Reverberi Massimo, Baglieri Andreea, Puglisi Ivana, Milani Mirco, Longo Minnolo Giuseppe and Barbagallo Salvatore for the publication in the journal Sustainability MDPI:

1. The manuscript is of interest to the scientific community and can be published in the journal MDPI Sustainability after some optimization.

2. Before moving on with this - the authors definitely need to clarify and describe in detail a number of nuances and aspects in the MS.

First of all, it is necessary to provide in the manuscript the definitions of the terms "fertilizer", "biofertilizer", "biostimulant" used by the authors - both scientific and regulatory.

Accordingly - to ensure their applicability in the context of the categorization of the product in question.

Also, the authors work at Universities in Italy.

Therefore, it is desirable that the authors will describe in more detail the situation for the legal regulation of these three groups of products in Italy, as well as in comparison with the situation in the European Union, including in connection with and specifically for the product in question.

3. It is necessary to check the reliability, accuracy and significance of the differences in Figure 2, Figure 3, Figure 4, Figure 5, Figure 6, Figure 10, Figure 11, Figure 12, Figure 13, Table 3, Table 4, Table 5, Table 6.

4. It is necessary to describe in more detail and conceptually the aspect of potential differences or constancy/stability for the composition of the investigated product - in the specific context of different batches of the resulting product according to the technology used by the authors and in a more general sense for similar products.

5. Authors need to review all their previous publications that could be similar in content to this manuscript and discuss and cite these, if any.

Author Response

First of all, we wish to thank the reviewers for the valuable suggestions which have all been incorporated into the latest version of the MS

In particular:

Reviewer 1

Comments on the manuscript (MS) entitled "Sustainable Use of Citrus Waste as Organic Amendment and Biostimulant in Orange Orchards", submitted by the authors Consoli Simona, Caggia Cinzia, Russo Nunziatina, Randazzo Cinzia Lucia, Continella Alberto, Modica Giulia, Cacciola Santa Olga, Faino Luigi, Reverberi Massimo, Baglieri Andreea, Puglisi Ivana, Milani Mirco, Longo Minnolo Giuseppe and Barbagallo Salvatore for the publication in the journal Sustainability MDPI:

1. The manuscript is of interest to the scientific community and can be published in the journal MDPI Sustainability after some optimization.

Thank you for the opportunity

2. Before moving on with this - the authors definitely need to clarify and describe in detail a number of nuances and aspects in the MS. First of all, it is necessary to provide in the manuscript the definitions of the terms "fertilizer","biofertilizer", "biostimulant" used by the authors - both scientific and regulatory. Accordingly - to ensure their applicability in the context of the categorization of the product in question. Also, the authors work at Universities in Italy. Therefore, it is desirable that the authors will describe in more detail the situation for the legal regulation of these three groups of products in Italy, as well as in comparison with the situation in the European Union, including in connection with and specifically for the product in question.

The required definitions have been provided in the introductory part of the MS (page and penultimate paragraph); the definitions have been highlighted in yellow in the "cleaned" version of the MS. The Italian normative references for CW management are indicated in the introduction part (in yellow) "from Traditionally to ……..references 15 and 16"

3. It is necessary to check the reliability, accuracy and significance of the differences in Figure 2, Figure 3, Figure 4, Figure 5, Figure 6, Figure 10, Figure 11, Figure 12, Figure 13, Table 3, Table4, Table 5, Table 6.

All the required determinations and specifications were included in the MS. New Figures and Tables were included in the MS with the relative statistics and levels of significance.

 

4. It is necessary to describe in more detail and conceptually the aspect of potential differences or constancy/stability for the composition of the investigated product - in the specific context of different batches of the resulting product according to the technology used by the authors and in a more general sense for similar products.

The discussion of the results has been expanded, also in relation to the existing literature, in order to give greater consistency to the specificity of the conclusions proposed and the evaluations carried out.

5. Authors need to review all their previous publications that could be similar in content to this manuscript and discuss and cite these, if any.

This type of study is currently unique to the authors. The authors also cited the works already published concerning the various aspects monitored (microbiological, productive, chemical-physical, etc...)

 

Reviewer 2 Report

The authors present numerous results about the application of citrus waste as a biostimulant for citrus production. Scientifically, the manuscript has merit, but it cannot be accepted as written. In this case, there are grammatical errors in the text and the figures, which need to improve the resolution. Zoological nomenclature errors also need to be adjusted. In this case, I suggest a manuscript reviewed by the professional editorial system.

Other small details need to be corrected, namely:

Line 54 – Change “CW shows low...” to “The citrus waste shows low…”.

Line 55 - Do not start a sentence with abbreviated words. In this case, change “CW” to “Citrus waste”.

Line 174 - For scientific names mentioned for the first time in the text, put the name of the classifier and add to which family it belongs, for example, Salmonella enterica (Enterobacteriaceae).

Line 188 - Use the abbreviated scientific name, as it is first cited in line 174. In this case, change “Salmonella enterica” to “S. enterica”.

Line 282 - Are there variations here? Where is the standard error?

Line 347 - Where is the standard error?

Line 367 - In the figure, use the italic font for genus and species names.

Lines 417-421 - Pay attention to correctly spelled scientific names.

Lines 425-428 - The names of the microorganisms are unclear. Improve picture resolution.

Line 442 - Improve picture resolution.

Line 466 - Where is the standard error?

Line 473 - Where is the standard error?

Author Response

First of all, we wish to thank the reviewers for the valuable suggestions which have all been incorporated into the latest version of the MS

In particular:

Reviewer 2

The authors present numerous results about the application of citrus waste as a biostimulant for citrus production. Scientifically, the manuscript has merit, but it cannot be accepted as written. In this case, there are grammatical errors in the text and the figures, which need to improve the resolution. Zoological nomenclature errors also need to be adjusted. In this case, I suggest a manuscript reviewed by the professional editorial system.

Thank you for your advices. The MS has been extensively revised to improve English.

Other small details need to be corrected, namely:

Line 54 – Change “CW shows low...” to “The citrus waste shows low…”.

Thank you. It was changed

Line 55 - Do not start a sentence with abbreviated words. In this case, change “CW” to “Citrus waste”.

Thank you. It was changed

Line 174 - For scientific names mentioned for the first time in the text, put the name of the classifier and add to which family it belongs, for example, Salmonella enterica (Enterobacteriaceae).

Thank you. It was changed

Line 188 - Use the abbreviated scientific name, as it is first cited in line 174. In this case, change “Salmonella enterica” to “S. enterica”.

Thank you. It was changed

Line 282 - Are there variations here? Where is the standard error?

All the required determinations and specifications were included in the MS. New Figures and Tables were included in the MS with the relative statistics and levels of significance.

Line 347 - Where is the standard error?         

All the required determinations and specifications were included in the MS. New Figures and Tables were included in the MS with the relative statistics and levels of significance.

Line 367 - In the figure, use the italic font for genus and species names.

Modified

Lines 417-421 - Pay attention to correctly spelled scientific names.

Done

Lines 425-428 - The names of the microorganisms are unclear. Improve picture resolution.

The pictures have been improved

Line 442 - Improve picture resolution.

The pictures have been improved

Line 466 - Where is the standard error?

Tables were included in the MS with the relative statistics and levels of significance.

Line 473 - Where is the standard error?

Tables were included in the MS with the relative statistics and levels of significance.

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments on the manuscript "Sustainable Use of Citrus Waste as Organic Amendment in Orange Orchards" (Sustainability-2084926), as part of the second round of peer review:  

Although the authors have made certain improvements and additional information to the manuscript, nevertheless, a number of points are clearly not developed enough to ensure the high quality of the final version of the manuscript.

In this context, it is highly desirable that the authors revise, re-write, re-edit the manuscript in accordance with the comments of the first round of peer review in general, and especially within the framework of the previously made comment in connection with the use of terms "organic amendment", "organic fertilizer", "biofertilizer", "biostimulant". 

After that, I will be very happy to read this manuscript as a published article in a journal Sustainability MDPI.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

Thank you for your important advices.

We have included, in response to your criticism, the following phrase in the introduction section (marked in yellow). As Authors, accordingly to your criticism, we prefer only to consider the role of Citrus Waste as biofertilizer. The term biostimulat was non more included in the text.

The European Parliament has recently launched a new regulation, known as Regulation (EU) 2019/1009, to discipline the use of fertilizers and harmonize the market for production of these compounds for all the European member states. In general, a fertilizing product is “a substance, mixture, microorganism or any other material, applied or intended to be applied on plants or their rhizosphere or on mushrooms or their mycosphere, or intended to constitute the rhizosphere or mycosphere, either on its own or mixed with another material, for the purpose of providing the plants or mushrooms with nutrient or improving their nutrition efficiency [17]. Therefore, biofertilizers are defined as the substances containing variety of microbes having the capacity to enhance plant nutrient uptake by colonizing the rhizosphere and make the nutrients easily accessible to plant root hairs. They are well known for their cost effectiveness, environment-friendly nature, and composition, representing effective alternatives to the chemical fertilizers.

Reviewer 2 Report

All suggestions were complied. In this case, the manuscript has been improved and is suitable for publication.

Congratulations!

 

Author Response

thank you for your final decision

Round 3

Reviewer 1 Report

First of all, I would like to point out that I did not mean that the term biostimulant should have been necessarily excluded.

While this does not mean that I support it unequivocally, I do respect the authors' point of view when they used one or another term in the first version of the manuscript.

Obviously, the authors had some justification for the terminology they used earlier.

That is, by this I affirm that I, as a reviewer, should not influence this or that context, and from my comments there it is clearly visible that I observe the ethics of the reviewer and, accordingly, draw the attention of the authors to the need for only evidence-based discussion.

As a result of this approach, authors should come to a reasonable use of one or another terminology, based on a wider use of the necessary literature sources than is currently the case.

Therefore, and since the authors initially used the terms "fertilizer", "biofertilizer", "biostimulant", as well as "organic amendment", "organic fertilizer", I consider it absolutely necessary to give more detailed reasoning and argumentation in relation to all these terms - in the context of substantiating the correctness of their use in this manuscript..

In fact, this is a very important point for potential readers, since in many articles this aspect remains obscure.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer and Editors,

Given that the article has been substantially revised also to improve its style and English, we reserve the possibility to maintain the considerations present in the research work as they were produced in this second revision.

As Authors, thanks to the reviewer's observations, we have standardized the terminology, therefore considering Citrus Waste as an organic fertilizer or biofertilizer. This fertilizer (it is clear that in our case this terminology refers to CW) was used to improve the soil. The amendment typically improves the structure of the soil, making it less compact; facilitates water retention, thus making irrigation interventions more effective and economical; it also facilitates the growth of the roots, and the oxygenation of the soil, thus facilitating the work of humification of the organic substance present.Editor, not deeming it necessary to modify anything, rather having followed the indications of the reviewer and in particular:

• - Specify the definition of bio fertilizer;
• - Indicate the reference literature;
• - Indicate the relevant legislation;
• - Standardize definitions.