Stability and Adaptability of Maize Hybrids for Precision Crop Production in a Long-Term Field Experiment in Hungary

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The paper describes a 3-year experiment of corn production using different hybrids and fertilization levels. The authors used IMMA analysis to compare different hybrids and the environmental effects of yield and quality of corn grains. The experimentation was carried out in the experimental farm of the University of Debrecen and it is part of 38-years of experimentation. The study considered 10 FAO classes hybrids, two treatments with 5 levels of fertilizer application each. 

Although the study is well designed and the analysis fit the aim of the manuscript there is two main concern regarding the methodology:

1. Do you have any data regarding the soil and the previous fertilizer application? Which crop was cultivated before the three years? What about crop residue? Is the level of Nitrogen decreases after three years? What about soil organic carbon? Which was the tillage protocol? Sustainable agriculture deals with factor productivity and this analysis should include it considering the level of nitrogen and soc in the soil.
2. Should the result of this study be used for hybrid-fertilizer requirement definition? Can precision agriculture affect these results? Can you add in the discussion consideration on long term precision agriculture application on corn yield? How your study can be useful for the environmental policy related to sustainable agriculture (especially regarding the new Common Agriculture Policy of European Union)?

In addition, I have the following specific comments:

Title: add a reference to Hungary since it is a case study performed there

Figures: Improve the image resolution and quality

Tables: Please cut value using three significant numbers

l4: who is the last author?

l28: kg not Kg

l79: Please provide AMMI definition

l104: Producer and city of Infratec

l113:Please use the right captation font

l124: ANOVA and correlation are basic statistic knowledge. Please provide a better explanation for AMMI

l127:Provide a definition of each elements within the formula

l1131: Producer and city of Genstat

Author Response

Response to reviewers’ comments

Dear Editor,

We have carefully checked and re-edited the manuscript according to the format of the journal. Punctuations and major grammatical errors have been corrected. Also, we tried to reduce the redundant sentences. Revised and add texts based on the reviewers comments.

Reviewer no.1

I appreciate your comments on my article. I accepted all your comments and revised my article based on them. I respond to the question I hope will be enough detail for you.

The paper describes a 3-year experiment of corn production using different hybrids and fertilization levels. The authors used IMMA analysis to compare different hybrids and the environmental effects of yield and quality of corn grains. The experimentation was carried out in the experimental farm of the University of Debrecen and it is part of 38-years of experimentation. The study considered 10 FAO classes hybrids, two treatments with 5 levels of fertilizer application each. 

Although the study is well designed and the analysis fit the aim of the manuscript there is two main concern regarding the methodology:

1. Do you have any data regarding the soil and the previous fertilizer application? Which crop was cultivated before the three years? What about crop residue? Is the level of Nitrogen decreases after three years? What about soil organic carbon? Which was the tillage protocol? Sustainable agriculture deals with factor productivity and this analysis should include it considering the level of nitrogen and soc in the soil.

Yes, it is, we have soil data before fertilizer application, and we get soil samples every year before fertilizer application. From 38 years ago until today, we have used just maize in this field. We use maize every year, and it is a long-term experiment of maize. No, it is not. Nitrogen fertilizer was stable and fixed in our investigation. We have used strip tillage for planting. I agree with your opinion, but our soil samples analysis showed that the set value of the soil organic carbon in our experiment in three years. Our goal is optimized fertilizer levels and hybrids to inform Hungarian farmers. We are used strip tillage and all the residue of the last plant mixed with soil and keep stability in this situation.

1. Should the result of this study be used for hybrid-fertilizer requirement definition? Can precision agriculture affect these results? Can you add in the discussion consideration on long-term precision agriculture application on corn yield? How your study can be useful for the environmental policy related to sustainable agriculture (especially regarding the new Common Agriculture Policy of the European Union)?

Yes, it is. The farmers can use this result in fertilizer application because these hybrids are used in the east of Hungary. The farmers used more than this fertilizer to cultivate maize and maybe pollute soil and water underground. One of the precision agricultural goals is greater sustainability and environmental protection. This study can help farmers change the decision to use the fertilizer and optimize fertilizer for each hybrid. The policy of the Europian union used biofertilizers for agricultural farming. Still, today, almost all farmers use the completer fertilizer to maize, and we think this issue can help use the optimized fertilizer for each hybrid. It is important that farmers change the fertilizer application pattern, use optimized fertilizer and hybrid, and make stability in their field. The farmers to other countries can use this analysis and results too because our study the FAO number of the maize hybrids. This study and subject are unique in Hungary and east of Europe to this issue.In addition, I have the following specific comments:

Title: add a reference to Hungary since it is a case study performed there

Figures: Improve the image resolution and quality

Tables: Please cut value using three significant numbers

l4: who is the last author?

l28: kg not Kg

l79: Please provide AMMI definition

l104: Producer and city of Infratec

l113:Please use the right captation font

l124: ANOVA and correlation are basic statistic knowledge. Please provide a better explanation for AMMI

l127:Provide a definition of each elements within the formula

l1131: Producer and city of Genstat

Dear Reviewer

I am very happy to your comments on my article. Thank you so much for your support.

Best regards

Mousavi

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

Reviewer Blind Comments to Author

Strength

This study provided a comprehensive analysis on the stability and adaptability of maize hybrids

under different fertilizer treatments in terms of yield, protein, starch, and oil content. The results could be used to make fertilizer recommendation for hybrid maize production.

Weaknesses

There are numerous errors in English grammars, phrases, and sentence structures throughout the manuscript, which should be corrected.

This is mainly a multi-year fertilizer study in one environment. The title may need to be revised to reflect this. The ANOVA and AMMI were conducted on NPK in Treatment I and on N in Treatment II, but no justification was given on why one is on NPK and the other on N, and why there were no separate analyses on N, P and K (at least in discussion)

There was a lack of detailed figure captions and text explanation for biplot and GGE plot figures. As a result, the reviewer cannot verify the conclusion of the biplot and GGE plot analysis.

Specific Comments

 L52-53: “indicate different NPK fertiliser applications on yield”: Not clear

L57-58: “The use of chemical fertilisers as the fastest way to 57 compensate for soil nutrient deficiencies.”: Not a sentence

L67-70: “Some researchers reported …”: The entire sentence is poorly constructed

L70-71: “Increasing the amount of …”: You are confusing the amount with efficiency

L79: “AMMI”: Spells out the term in first use

L85: “(GE to the main”: Missing closing parenthesis

L89: “multiverse”: Are you sure this is the right term?

L104: “72.000 plants per hectare”: You mean 72,000?

L108: Table 1: Include unit for the fertilizer

L127: Need to explain the terms in the AMMI formula

L134-136: “The response of genotypes in the media …”: This setence is not clear

L152 Table 3: “S.O.V”: Spell out the term

L152 Table 3: What are the values in the last 4 columns? Are they F-values from ANOVA?

L152 Table 3: Genotype in Treatments: use standard formula ‘Genotype × Treatment’. Same comment for other terms

L152 Table 3: Why ‘Treatments (NPK)’ in Treatment I and ‘Treatments (N)’?

L144: “was significant on one percent” à at P<0.01

L145: “on oil content on five percent” à at P<0.05

L145: “Interaction of the years in genotype in NPK” à The interaction of Year × Genotype × NPK

L166: Table 4: It was not clear how Tukey’s group analysis was carried out. Why there was no variety belong to more than one group if you are using Tukey’s HSD mean separation?

L157: “Tukey grouping showed that FAO430”: Do you refer to results for Treatment II?

L173-174: “AMMI Analysis showed a significant effect of the genotypes, the effect of NPK in  genotype interaction, and the effect of genotypes in NPK interaction”: Not clear and not reflected in AMMI results in Table 5

L178: “Grain yield and 178 starch content had stability on yield in effect of NPK in genotypes interaction…”: Not clear

L179: “On average, 179 oil content was stable among the different maize hybrids.”: Which figure you are referring to?

L185-186: “oil content showed sta-185 bility of performance in the case of different fertiliser levels, and grain yield had a mini-186 mum stability as a result of different fertiliser levels”: It is not clear how the conclusion can be derived from Figure 3Bs.

L192 Table 5: Why df for NPK is 3?

L183: “The first principal component analysis…”:  Are you referring to Treatment II results?

L194 Figure 3: What does ‘Genotype & Environment means’ refer to? Hybrid yield?

L194 Figure 3: It is not clear what the red texts (‘yield’, ‘Starch’, ‘Protein’ and ‘Oil’) mean in the figure. Are you missing a symbol near each text? Need more explanations in the text and figure caption

L204 Figure 4: What are the four plots in this figure? Need more detailed figure caption and text explanation (See reference: Bishwas, K. C., M. R. Poudel, and D. Regmi. 2021. AMMI and GGE biplot analysis of yield of different elite wheat line under terminal heat stress and irrigated environments. Heliyon 7.)

Author Response

Response to reviewers’ comments

Dear Editor,

We have carefully checked and re-edited the manuscript according to the format of the journal. Punctuations and major grammatical errors have been corrected. Also, we tried to reduce the redundant sentences. Revised and add texts based on the reviewers comments.

Reviewer no.1

I appreciate your comments on my article. I accepted all your comments and revised my article based on them. I respond to the question I hope will be enough detail for you.

Reviewer Blind Comments to Author

Strength

This study provided a comprehensive analysis on the stability and adaptability of maize hybrids under different fertilizer treatments in terms of yield, protein, starch, and oil content. The results could be used to make fertilizer recommendation for hybrid maize production.

I appreciate you.

Weaknesses

There are numerous errors in English grammars, phrases, and sentence structures throughout the manuscript, which should be corrected.

This is mainly a multi-year fertilizer study in one environment. The title may need to be revised to reflect this. The ANOVA and AMMI were conducted on NPK in Treatment I and on N in Treatment II, but no justification was given on why one is on NPK and the other on N, and why there were no separate analyses on N, P and K (at least in discussion)

There was a lack of detailed figure captions and text explanation for biplot and GGE plot figures. As a result, the reviewer cannot verify the conclusion of the biplot and GGE plot analysis.

Thank you so much for your comments.

I revised my article based on English grammar.

This research compared two experiments of nitrogen fertilizer and complete fertilizer. Our goal was precision agriculture to on fertilizer and got the best performance of hybrids and fertilizer levels. One of precision agriculture is Greater Sustainability and Environmental Protection and economical benefits for farmers. We try to find optimized fertilizer levels for each hybrid and find the stability of hybrids in this case. We used ten hybrids from popular hybrids in Hungary. We are focused on nitrogen because this is the main fertilizer in farmers in Hungary. We compared nitrogen with different P and K and with fixed P and K. this experiment is a long term from 38 ago until today on Maize. I revised the article and added some sentences about GGE analysis, and briefed it. The farmers can use this result in fertilizer application because these hybrids are used in the east of Hungary. The farmers used more than this fertilizer to cultivate Maize and maybe pollute soil and water underground.

Specific Comments 

L52-53: “indicate different NPK fertiliser applications on yield”: Not clear

L57-58: “The use of chemical fertilisers as the fastest way to 57 compensate for soil nutrient deficiencies.”: Not a sentence

L67-70: “Some researchers reported …”: The entire sentence is poorly constructed

L70-71: “Increasing the amount of …”: You are confusing the amount with efficiency

L79: “AMMI”: Spells out the term in first use

L85: “(GE to the main”: Missing closing parenthesis

L89: “multiverse”: Are you sure this is the right term?

L104: “72.000 plants per hectare”: You mean 72,000?

L108: Table 1: Include unit for the fertilizer

L127: Need to explain the terms in the AMMI formula

L134-136: “The response of genotypes in the media …”: This setence is not clear

L152 Table 3: “S.O.V”: Spell out the term

L152 Table 3: What are the values in the last 4 columns? Are they F-values from ANOVA?

Yes they are, they are F-values from ANOVA.

L152 Table 3: Genotype in Treatments: use standard formula ‘Genotype × Treatment’. Same comment for other terms

L152 Table 3: Why ‘Treatments (NPK)’ in Treatment I and ‘Treatments (N)’?

L144: “was significant on one percent” à at P<0.01

L145: “on oil content on five percent” à at P<0.05

L145: “Interaction of the years in genotype in NPK” à The interaction of Year × Genotype × NPK

L166: Table 4: It was not clear how Tukey’s group analysis was carried out. Why there was no variety belong to more than one group if you are using Tukey’s HSD mean separation?

I agree with you but our goals to get most similar performance of hybrids. If used Cluster analysis to grouping it will be good to use Tukey’s HSD mean.

L157: “Tukey grouping showed that FAO430”: Do you refer to results for Treatment II?

L173-174: “AMMI Analysis showed a significant effect of the genotypes, the effect of NPK in  genotype interaction, and the effect of genotypes in NPK interaction”: Not clear and not reflected in AMMI results in Table 5

L178: “Grain yield and 178 starch content had stability on yield in effect of NPK in genotypes interaction…”: Not clear

L179: “On average, 179 oil content was stable among the different maize hybrids.”: Which figure you are referring to?

L185-186: “oil content showed sta-185 bility of performance in the case of different fertiliser levels, and grain yield had a mini-186 mum stability as a result of different fertiliser levels”: It is not clear how the conclusion can be derived from Figure 3Bs.

L192 Table 5: Why df for NPK is 3?

L183: “The first principal component analysis…”:  Are you referring to Treatment II results?

L194 Figure 3: What does ‘Genotype & Environment means’ refer to? Hybrid yield?

L194 Figure 3: It is not clear what the red texts (‘yield’, ‘Starch’, ‘Protein’ and ‘Oil’) mean in the figure. Are you missing a symbol near each text? Need more explanations in the text and figure caption

L204 Figure 4: What are the four plots in this figure? Need more detailed figure caption and text explanation (See reference: Bishwas, K. C., M. R. Poudel, and D. Regmi. 2021. AMMI and GGE biplot analysis of yield of different elite wheat line under terminal heat stress and irrigated environments. Heliyon 7.)

Dear Reviewer

I revised my article based on your comments; I agree with your comments. I am very happy to your comments on my article. Thank you so much for your support.

Best regards

Mousavi

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

Reviewer Blind Comments to Author

Strength

This study provided a comprehensive analysis on the stability and adaptability of maize hybrids

under different fertilizer treatments in terms of yield, protein, starch, and oil content. The results could be used to make fertilizer recommendation for hybrid maize production.

Weaknesses

There are still numerous errors in English grammars, phrases, and sentence structures throughout the manuscript. This weakness has not been adequately addressed and the manuscript is still very difficult to understand.

Examples of poor English sentences and suggested revision in the Abstract

L12-13: “will lead to food security and production resources for current and future generations.” --> will lead to food security and efficient use of production resources for current and future generations.

L13-15: “The selection of suitable hybrids and fertilizers is among the methods that can directly influence sustainable agriculture and eco-monic efficiency at the farm level” --> The selection of suitable hybrids and fertilizers can directly influence sustainable agriculture and economic efficiency at the farm level.

L21-22: “To gain the best performance and maximum yield of maize on protein and oil, FAO350 is recommended on protein and FAO340 on oil content, respectively” --> FAO350 is recommended for high protein content and FAO340 for high yield and high oil content

L22-23: “The parameters of grain yield, oil content, protein content, and starch content affected by NPK fertilizer provide the stability of the parameters grain yield” --> Biplot analyses were carried out to assess the stability of grain yield, oil content, protein content, and starch content as affected by different NPK fertilizer rates.

Other Comments

L152-161: Some symbols in the text are not shown in in AMMI formula.

L268 Figure 3: ‘Y’ and ‘Z’ not show in the figure.

Author Response

Dear reviewer
I appreciate your comments. I revised my article based on the English editing and sent it to your information PDF file. Other comments, I agree with your comments, and I revised my article based on your comments. About the AMMI formula, I changed it based on my study too.
Thank you so much for supporting us.
Best regards
Mousavi

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf