Date of Planting and Nitrogen Management for Winter Malt Barley Production in the Northeast, USA

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Line 27: Put the references in the brackets.

Table 1: Be consistent. Either write the short form of the months or their full name in all of the tables.

The formula of GDD below table 1 is not clear. Write in a bigger font.

"C" is not a representative of temperature. Change it to ^"oC^" all over the manuscript including tables.

Line 119: "Each plot was ranked on a 0-10 scale with 10 as complete survival" Explain what 0 stands for on this scale.

Line 121: Is any specific reason that you have written: "A Manual of Assessment Keys for 121 Plant Disease" in italic?

Line 135: Mention the LOD of this procedure for DON determination.

Line 149: "nor any of their interactions had significant impact on grain yield 

What is the reason that no standard deviation has been mentioned for the data in the tables?

Line 178: 8%. Please be consistent all over the manuscript. Either write in number or text for the percentages.

Line 254: Write either the full name or short name of the months all over the manuscript. Be consistent.

In table 3, I have doubt that whether the statistical difference analysis has been done correctly!! Some data seems to have significant differences but you have mentioned a non-significant difference for them. e.g, date of planting and DON (>50% increase); date of planting and falling number (>25% increase)!!! 

Line 351: The late September barley has the highest DON content!! It is a carcinogenic compound and you should mention it.

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

The manuscript entitled: "Date of planting and nitrogen management for winter malt barley production in the Northeast, USA" is written at a good level. Nevertheless, I have a few suggestions for the authors:

1. According to the chapter Materials and methods, in each year of the experiment a different pre-crop was used for malting barley. Especially from the point of view of Faba bean, could not this crop have a decisive influence on the yield, resp. the quality of the main crop for its ability to capture atmospheric nitrogen? The results could then be skewed.
2. Tables 2 and 3 are clearly arranged, but lack the indication of the significance of the differences between the values ​​within the factor by means of post-hoc analysis.
3. How do the authors explain that even though there was a big difference in winter survival between the dates of sowing, it did not affect the grain yield? It might be worth discussing this.
4. Line 286 shows Figure 5, but is missing in the manuscript.
5. Table 2. Grain yield (Mg ha^-1). It would be appropriate to adjust the quantity according to European standards to t ha^-1.
6. It would be beneficial in the context of the experiment and its conclusions for the authors to present in the results bar graphs of interactions (planting dates, fall N applications and spring N) for the most important parameters.
7. In lines 8 and 25, enter the full Latin name in italics.

Author Response

Please see attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx