Substitution Experiment of Biodegradable Paper Mulching Film and White Plastic Mulching Film in Hexi Oasis Irrigation Area

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The work deals with important aspects of replacing plastic materials with biodegradable materials. Taking into account the scale of use of these materials in the mulching process, the conducted research is absolutely justified.

Unfortunately, the work is written carelessly and contrary to the Instructions for Authors. The work requires major corrections.

 

1. The abstract consists of 458 words, while the maximum number of words allowed is 200. The abstract must be therefore completely rewritten.

2. There is a disorder in the descriptions of figures and charts. The Authors describe the figures in the following order: 2a, 1a, 4, 1b, 3, etc. It is advisable to arrange the order.

3. Fig. 2b is not mentioned in the text.

4. The use of an X-ray diffractometer was mentioned in section 2.2, but no results were reported in this paper.

5. Figure 6 shows the data of samples described as PF PE A-PF and A-PE, that do not correspond to the symbols in the text. 

6. Caption of Figure 6 d is wrong. There should probably be a "tear curve".

7. All results which are shown in Figure 6 c-f should be analyzed again. The charts are probably not the result of averaging (which is good, because such data should not be averaged), but they cannot therefore be the basis for quantitative conclusions. Calculations should be made for all samples and then averaged (preferably presented later in a table). Moreover, the dependencies in Fig. 6 e seem incomplete. It is difficult to draw conclusions on this basis. The sentence “Compared with the two mulching films, BM paper film can better improve the influence of anti-dry heat aging on mechanical properties” is incomprehensible.

8. In section 3.5.3, a non-existent Figure 12b is mentioned. It should probably be Figure 11b.

9. Sentences such as, for example, in section 2.3: "Ensure good repeatability of the experiment, and do 7 experiments in vertical and horizontal directions respectively, and take the average value of 5 good data, accurate to 0.01N" suggest the origin of the instruction manual. This should be corrected throughout the work.

10. In section 3.3, the ° (deg) symbol is missing several times.

11. Captions for figures should be checked (missing (a), (b) etc. or inconsistent).

12. In section 3.4 a temperature of “150” is mentioned (by the way, °C is omitted). Is it about 105 °C or is it any hypothetical value of 150 °C?

13. In section 3.4, the authors analyze the surface roughness of the samples by determining the Sa parameter. This is a very simplified approach. What is the rms roughness value for these samples? Why were such data not obtained from the SEM analysis performed and described in section 3.1 for the purpose of comparison with the profilometer results? The more so that Fig. 5 a-c vs. Fig. 5 d-f suggest completely opposite results.

14. References are up-to-date but must be reorganized according to the Instructions for Authors. In addition, some references lack information on publication year, volume, page ranges, etc.

Author Response

RESPONSE LETTER (coatings-1812493)

Title: Performance research and field substitution experiment of biodegradable paper mulch film and white plastic mulch film in Hexi Oasis Dry Farming Irrigation District

 

Dear Editor and Referees:

Special thanks for the reviewer’s professional suggestions. The comments not only promote the quality of the manuscript, but also will play an important role in our later research work. Based on referees’ comments and editor’s decision, we have revised our entire manuscript. The corrections have been included in the revised manuscript and the details are listed as follows.

 

Reviewer: 1

The work deals with important aspects of replacing plastic materials with biodegradable materials. Taking into account the scale of use of these materials in the mulching process, the conducted research is absolutely justified.

Unfortunately, the work is written carelessly and contrary to the Instructions for Authors. The work requires major corrections.

 

1）The abstract consists of 458 words, while the maximum number of words allowed is 200. The abstract must be therefore completely rewritten.

Response: Thanks for the reviewer's advice. The paper is more redundant in its presentation of the abstract. According to the suggestions of reviewers, the abstract was revised to be more concise. The revisions are highlighted in red.

2）There is a disorder in the descriptions of figures and charts. The Authors describe the figures in the following order: 2a, 1a, 4, 1b, 3, etc. It is advisable to arrange the order.

Response: Thanks for the reviewer's advice. We have rearranged the charts to make them clear and easy to understand.

3) Fig. 2b is not mentioned in the text.

Response: Thanks for the reviewer's advice. Fig. 2b is sampling schematic diagram of Temperature, moisture content and oxygen content.

4) The use of an X-ray diffractometer was mentioned in section 2.2, but no results were reported in this paper.

Response: Thanks for the reviewer's advice. It is true that we did not use the X-ray diffractometer for the experiment, and the misrepresentation has been removed.

5) Figure 6 shows the data of samples described as PF PE A-PF and A-PE, that do not correspond to the symbols in the text.

Response: Thanks for the reviewer's advice. We are sorry to put the BM and PM wrongly written PF with PE.

6) Caption of Figure 6 d is wrong. There should probably be a "tear curve".

Response: Thanks for the reviewer's advice. We have changed "tear load" and "tearing load" to "tensile curve" and "tear curve".

7) All results which are shown in Figure 6 c-f should be analyzed again. The charts are probably not the result of averaging (which is good, because such data should not be averaged), but they cannot therefore be the basis for quantitative conclusions. Calculations should be made for all samples and then averaged (preferably presented later in a table). Moreover, the dependencies in Fig. 6 e seem incomplete. It is difficult to draw conclusions on this basis. The sentence “Compared with the two mulching films, BM paper film can better improve the influence of anti-dry heat aging on mechanical properties” is incomprehensible.

Response: Thanks for the reviewer's advice. Thanks for the reviewer’s advice. In the basic mechanics experiments we repeat a lot of experiments, the experimental results close to, so we in the selection of the mechanical part is just a set of comparison and conclusion our study a basic test, is not the research emphasis As a result, within a reasonable error If you need we can provide the raw data, in this paper is not to be tiredFigure 6e is the stretch-displacement curve of PM, here we only show the maximum allowable force value of PM, but its original data is complete. The expression of this part may not be clear in the original manuscript. We have revised it and marked it in red in the manuscript.

8) In section 3.5.3, a non-existent Figure 12b is mentioned. It should probably be Figure 11b.

Response: Thanks for the reviewer's advice. We have corrected the error.

9) Sentences such as, for example, in section 2.3: "Ensure good repeatability of the experiment, and do 7 experiments in vertical and horizontal directions respectively, and take the average value of 5 good data, accurate to 0.01N" suggest the origin of the instruction manual. This should be corrected throughout the work.

Response: Thanks for the reviewer's advice. We have changed the test description section to make it more concise.

10) In section 3.3, the ° (deg) symbol is missing several times.

Response: Thanks for the reviewer's advice. We have corrected the error.

11) Captions for figures should be checked (missing (a), (b) etc. or inconsistent).

Response: Thanks for the reviewer's advice. We have corrected the error.

12) In section 3.4 a temperature of “150” is mentioned (by the way, °C is omitted). Is it about 105 °C or is it any hypothetical value of 150 °C?

Response: Thanks for the reviewer's advice. Is it 105 °C .

13) In section 3.4, the authors analyze the surface roughness of the samples by determining the Sa parameter. This is a very simplified approach. What is the rms roughness value for these samples? Why were such data not obtained from the SEM analysis performed and described in section 3.1 for the purpose of comparison with the profilometer results? The more so that Fig. 5 a-c vs. Fig. 5 d-f suggest completely opposite results.

Response: Thanks for the reviewer's advice. For the surface roughness of sample analysis, we adopt 3 d profilometer measurements In this article, we select the surface roughness (Sa) as a comparative method, facilitating readers to more intuitive and clear understanding. In the article the root mean square roughness Rq has been added is perfect. We through SEM analysis of microcosmic structure of the surface of the sample, observing the morphology of sample as a whole is the scope ofThrough different magnification, the internal structure of the sample is displayed by SEM, which acts as a qualitative analysis method and lays a certain foundation for subsequent experiments. However, the roughness of the sample surface cannot be visually displayed. Due to the different surface properties of BM and PM, the sample surface presents different results under different SEM multiplesIn this paper, SEM presents only a surface form, which is difficult to clearly show the concavity of the sample surface. Therefore, SEM in Fig.5 a-c and Fig.5 d-f only serves as a reference characterization method in roughness analysis, and the specific analysis results are mainly based on the experiment in Section 3.4.

14) References are up-to-date but must be reorganized according to the Instructions for Authors. In addition, some references lack information on publication year, volume, page ranges, etc.

Response: Thanks for the reviewer's advice. We have re-cited the references to ensure they are accurate and completed.

 

In addition to the above modifications, we have carefully checked and proofread this paper for many times, including grammar, punctuation, tenses, pictures and references. All modifications in the paper are highlighted in red.

If you have any queries, please don’t hesitate to contact me.

 

Best Regards.

Yours Sincerely,

Qiang He

E-mail: aystar@163.com

Reviewer 2 Report

Attached my suggestions and observations

Comments for author File: Comments.docx

Author Response

RESPONSE LETTER (coatings-1812493)

Title: Performance research and field substitution experiment of biodegradable paper mulch film and white plastic mulch film in Hexi Oasis Dry Farming Irrigation District

 

Dear Editor and Referees:

Special thanks for the reviewer’s professional suggestions. The comments not only promote the quality of the manuscript, but also will play an important role in our later research work. Based on referees’ comments and editor’s decision, we have revised our entire manuscript. The corrections have been included in the revised manuscript and the details are listed as follows.

 

Reviewer: 2

The article investigates the use of a not properly specified biodegradable paper mulching film and a not properly specified white plastic mulching film in Hexi oasis irrigation area in order to understand the better green environmental protection on two types of cultures: maize and flax.

The purpose of the work is well explained and the 'on field' approach of using these materials with their respective treatments is interesting. However, numerous lacks and defects are present in this experimental work, especially in the description of the methodologies and the explanation of the materials and treatments used, which should be the real protagonists if the authors want to publishtheir work in the journal 'coatings'.

For all these reasons, major revisions are necessary as follows:

1) Please describe with more details the materials used: what kind of plastic and paper films did you use? Are they commercial products? Is it a recycled paper? What kind of “white plastic” is? You state that films are biodegradable but at page 10 you mention Polyethylene (not degradable in soil). For this reason, please be more precise on the used materials.

Response: Thanks for the reviewer's advice. We have been more explicit about the composition of the two types of mulch used, and most degradable plastic mulch is only partially degradable because it still contains plastic inside, and cannot be fully degraded like biodegradable paper mulch.

2) The sentence: “Adopt green organic planting mode technology and mechanized harvesting technology” is a meaningless sentence, please revise the language of all the document.

Response: Thanks for the reviewer's advice. We revised the language throughout the text to ensure accuracy and validity of its presentation.

3) In the text the first figure mentioned is Figure 2A, please invert the numbering of the figures so that the first figure mentioned is number 1

Response: Thanks for the reviewer's advice. We have rearranged the order of the charts to make the article clearer and easier to understand.

4) Why is “average thickness” mentioned for one of the films and nominal thickness for the other? Has one been measured experimentally and the other not? For what reason this difference of methodology?

Response: Thanks for the reviewer's advice. Both mulch thicknesses were measured experimentally, and the presentation has been corrected for errors.

5) It is frankly difficult to understand the type of treatments carried out on films. First of all, why is the assent of treatment considered like a treatment? It makes no sense. Call it 'control' or something like that.

Response: Thanks for the reviewer's advice. We are very sorry for the inaccurate wording in the manuscript. We believe that plastic film treatment means plastic film covering, which is to describe the soil covered by plastic film as the object. We have corrected it in the manuscript so that reviewers and readers can understand the revised content more clearly and marked in red.

6) Why are films sometimes called PM and BM and sometimes M1 and M2 and sometimes PF and PE? Are they always the same films? The nomenclature is really confusing.

Response: Thanks for the reviewer's advice. We are sorry to put the BM and PM wrongly written PF with PE.We have unified the naming of the study mulch samples in the manuscript.

7) “9.8 million mu”, please use SI measurement units.

Response: Thanks for the reviewer's advice. We have use SI measurement units.

8) I find that there is too much emphasis on the treatment of crops and too few specifics on materials. This is a journal that deals with 'coatings' so balance the text so that the focus is on mulch film treatments.

Response: Thanks for the reviewer's advice. The introduction of crops in the original draft is too detailed and we have simplified and revised the relevant content without affecting the purpose of writing. The content has been highlighted in red in the paper.

9) The results of the EDS analysis are not present in the paper.

Response: Thanks for the reviewer's advice. I'm sorry for the mistakes we made in the paper. Relevant words have been adjusted and marked red in the paper. In this study,SEM study can show us the surface morphology of the research object, which is the focus of our study. And SEM helps us to explain the difference between paper mulch and plastic mulch to readers more intuitively. The sample we studied is an industrial product, and its elemental composition is not our focus, so it is not discussed in this paper.

10) The entire 'SEM results' section needs to be improved. It is not clear if the film as such has been analysed, it is not clear what is being talked about when it comes to compatibility.

Response: Thanks for the reviewer's advice. We have further improved the analysis of SEM test results of mulching film samples and marked them in red.

11) Mechanical properties: Why the test have not been carried out on machine and cross direction?

Response: Thanks for the reviewer's advice. In this paper, we conducted mechanical tests on different mulching film samples, mainly on tensile properties and tearing properties of the samples. The tests were carried out on the SMT-5000 universal testing machine, for details, please refer to Section 3.5.

12) The treatment, beyond discussion, graphically does not show any improvement in the film from a mechanical point of view, they are almost unchanged.

Response: Thanks for the reviewer's advice. Referring to section “3.2. Mechanical Property”, we show the difference of BM and PM's mechanical properties to readers. After simulated environmental aging treatment, its mechanical properties also change significantly. And “3.1. Microscopic characterization” the SEM analysis in this part also provides partial support for the explanation of the mechanical strength change mechanism of plastic film samples. I hope these contents can solve your questions.

13) A thermal analysis of the films and their treatments is probably necessary to understand their behaviour in the open environment.

Response: Thanks for the reviewer's advice. In this paper, the thermal analysis of mulching film is mainly reflected in two parts: First, dry thermal aging experiment of mulching film samples were placed on MU3040C hot air aging test machine for laboratory aging and their mechanical properties and hydrophobic properties were observed. Second, the section of “3.5.1.Soil temperature”, we will be on the plastic film mulching on soil field experiment, observed the change of soil temperature. It can also be concluded from the side the difference between different heat transfer performance of plastic film mulching. But, for a single film in the real environment of thermal analysis in this study did not involve in the subsequent film of related study, considering we will it as a research project.

 

In addition to the above modifications, we have carefully checked and proofread this paper for many times, including grammar, punctuation, tenses, pictures and references. All modifications in the paper are highlighted in red.

If you have any queries, please don’t hesitate to contact me.

 

Best Regards.

Yours Sincerely,

Qiang He

E-mail: aystar@163.com

Reviewer 3 Report

Overall

There is merit in the paper being published but significant attention needs to be given to its presentation, structure and grammar.  Some sections are too long and disjoint and some contain unnecessary information.

 

1.        Abstract and Introduction

·  The abstract and introduction need to be simpler and shorter. All paragraphs a generally too long

·  The paper needs to be consistent in its use of the terms “biobased degradable”, “biodegradable” and “degradable” particularly as there is no data presented on biodegradability of the materials used in the study. This is very noticeable in the introduction.

·  The first sentence in the Introduction is confusing as it talks about “warming” (of what?..soil?)  and later farmers “getting rich” …this is irrelevant to a scientific paper …. are you really meaning productivity increases?    

·  The discussion and references to Zn/Si hydrophobic coatings seem irrelevant as these are not being used in the study at hand

2.               Materials and Methods

2.3 Testing and Characterisation

Sounds like a list of instructions rather than an explanation  

2.4 Experimental Site description

Relocate Figures 1 and 4 to this section. Consider renaming to Figures 1 and 2 to reflect order of presentation

2.5 Experimental Design and Crop Management

Section is too long and disjoint.

Consider use of simple Tables instead of long paragraphs in Maize and Flax sections to highlight similarities and differences

Relocate Figure 3 to this section

3.        Results and Discussion

Consider splitting this section into two separate sections i.e. Results and Discussion sections

3.1 Microscopic characterisation

                                    Put text before Images

3.2 Mechanical Property

Put text before Images.

The labelling (PF, PE) in the Figures does not seem consistent with those in the Figure’s explanation (BM and PM)

3.3 Hydrophobicity property  

Put text before Images.

3.4   Three-dimensional morphology and roughness

                  Put text before Images

3.5 Field Test   (all subsections)

Put text before Images

4.        Conclusions

The sentence “In terms of yield increasing performance…………….paper film on flax planting is better “….

This is a conclusion you need to give brief reasons why you have concluded this.

 

There is no data biodegradability data presented so you need to qualify the last sentence of the conclusion. Probably better to say “has the potential” rather than “can” replace

Author Response

RESPONSE LETTER (coatings-1812493)

Title: Performance research and field substitution experiment of biodegradable paper mulch film and white plastic mulch film in Hexi Oasis Dry Farming Irrigation District

 

Dear Editor and Referees:

Special thanks for the reviewer’s professional suggestions. The comments not only promote the quality of the manuscript, but also will play an important role in our later research work. Based on referees’ comments and editor’s decision, we have revised our entire manuscript. The corrections have been included in the revised manuscript and the details are listed as follows.

 

Reviewer: 3

1. Abstract and Introduction

1.1 The abstract and introduction need to be simpler and shorter. All paragraphs a generally too long.

Response: Thanks for the reviewer's advice. We have shortened the abstract to make it more concise.

1.2 The paper needs to be consistent in its use of the terms “biobased degradable”, “biodegradable” and “degradable” particularly as there is no data presented on biodegradability of the materials used in the study. This is very noticeable in the introduction.The abstract and introduction need to be simpler and shorter. All paragraphs a generally too long.

Response: Thanks for the reviewer's advice. We have standardized the definition of terms.

1.3 The first sentence in the Introduction is confusing as it talks about “warming” (of what?..soil?)  and later farmers “getting rich” …this is irrelevant to a scientific paper …. are you really meaning productivity increases?

Response: Thanks for the reviewer's advice. The warming means that the soil temperature is increased by the mulch. “getting rich” is used in this article inappropriately, meaning that the mulch is used to increase productivity.

1.4 The discussion and references to Zn/Si hydrophobic coatings seem irrelevant as these are not being used in the study at hand.

Response: Thanks for the reviewer's advice. The substrate of hydrophobic coating is biodegradable paper film, which is the same type of biodegradable paper film as this paper, while the above references provide the test methods and ideas.

2. Materials and Methods

2.1 Testing and Characterisation. Sounds like a list of instructions rather than an explanation

Response: Thanks for the reviewer's advice. It has now been changed to Performance Testing and Characterization.

2.2 Experimental Site description. Relocate Figures 1 and 4 to this section. Consider renaming to Figures 1 and 2 to reflect order of presentation

Response: Thanks for the reviewer's advice. The images have now been renamed to make sense of their order.

2.3 Experimental Design and Crop Management Section is too long and disjoint. Consider use of simple Tables instead of long paragraphs in Maize and Flax sections to highlight similarities and differences. Relocate Figure 3 to this section

Response: Thanks for the reviewer's advice. We found the section introducing the growth period of maize and flax too redundant and not relevant to this paper, so we refined it to growth dates to reflect the differences between maize and flax. Figure 3 has been positioned in the text.

3. Results and Discussion

Consider splitting this section into two separate sections i.e. Results and Discussion sections

3.1 Microscopic characterization. Put text before Images

3.2 Mechanical Property. Put text before Images.The labelling (PF, PE) in the Figures does not seem consistent with those in the Figure’s explanation (BM and PM)

3.3 Hydrophobicity property. Put text before Images.

3.4Three-dimensional morphology and roughness. Put text before Images

3.5 Field Test (all subsections). Put text before Images

Response: Thanks for the reviewer's advice. As for your suggestions in this part, we have made adjustments in the manuscript. The order of pictures and words has been switched. The icons of the adjusted pictures have been marked red in the manuscript.

4. Conclusions

The sentence “In terms of yield increasing performance paper film on flax planting is better ” This is a conclusion you need to give brief reasons why you have concluded this.

There is no data biodegradability data presented so you need to qualify the last sentence of the conclusion. Probably better to say “has the potential” rather than “can” replace

Response: Thanks for the reviewer's advice. At the conclusion, we added quantitative comparison of data to reflect the conclusion more intuitively.

 

In addition to the above modifications, we have carefully checked and proofread this paper for many times, including grammar, punctuation, tenses, pictures and references. All modifications in the paper are highlighted in red.

If you have any queries, please don’t hesitate to contact me.

 

Best Regards.

Yours Sincerely,

Qiang He

E-mail: aystar@163.com

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

The authors responded to the comments of the reviewer, but unfortunately very carelessly introduced corrections to their work. What is worse, some comments were not taken into account and some of the corrections are unacceptable.

1. The authors tried to arrange the figures in the correct order but lost one of the figures and repeated another two (Fig. 2 and Fig. 4).

2. Sentences from the operating instructions should not be used. However, the authors left such a form eg in section 2.6.3 "Select 3 ~ 6 plants with consistent and continuous growth in each plot to record the seedling stage and count the emergence rate".

3. The authors also did not correct the caption for Figure 6d. It should be "Tear curve" and not "Tensile curve".

4. The deficiencies presented above are most likely due to the rush to make corrections and are rather easy to fix.

Unfortunately, there are also substantive doubts.

5. The authors did not follow the remark given in point 7 of the previous review. This remark needs to be repeated:

All results which are shown in Figure 6 c-f should be analyzed again. The charts are probably not the result of averaging (which is good, because such data should not be averaged), but they cannot therefore be the basis for quantitative conclusions. Calculations should be made for all samples and then averaged (preferably presented later in a table). Moreover, the dependencies in Fig. 6 e seem incomplete. It is difficult to draw conclusions on this basis. ...

The authors' answer to this remark is unsatisfactory. Especially since they claim that they have many repeated tests, it shouldn't be a problem to analyze them correctly. The authors should carry out this analysis correctly.

6. The last remark applies to the text as a whole, but in particular to sections 3.3, 3.4, 3.5.2. Giving the percentage values to two decimal places, while the measurement uncertainty is in the order of a few percent, simply does not make any sense. Especially that from the examples given in version 1 of the work, the obtained percentage changes are different than in version 2 (section 3.3). Moreover, these calculations are again based on single measurements and should be based on a series of measurements. 

Author Response

The authors responded to the comments of the reviewer, but unfortunately very carelessly introduced corrections to their work. What is worse, some comments were not taken into account and some of the corrections are unacceptable.

1. The authors tried to arrange the figures in the correct order but lost one of the figures and repeated another two (Fig. 2 and Fig. 4).

Response：Thanks for the reviewer’s advice. In the process of reordering, pictures were missing due to our carelessness. We are very sorry for this low-level mistake. Thank you for your patience. We have checked the sorting of pictures again, deleted the repeated pictures and added the missing picture 4 in the manuscript, and marked the icon of picture 4 in red.

2. Sentences from the operating instructions should not be used. However, the authors left such a form eg in section 2.6.3 "Select 3 ~ 6 plants with consistent and continuous growth in each plot to record the seedling stage and count the emergence rate".

Response：Thanks for the reviewer’s advice. We have modified the sentence expression in the manuscript and marked it in red.

3. The authors also did not correct the caption for Figure 6d. It should be "Tear curve" and not "Tensile curve".

Response：Thanks for the reviewer’s advice. We have modified the title of picture 6d in the manuscript and highlighted it in red. In addition, we will also check the title of other pictures again. Thank you for your patient suggestion.

4. The deficiencies presented above are most likely due to the rush to make corrections and are rather easy to fix.Unfortunately, there are also substantive doubts.

Response：We feel very sorry for the above error, which is caused by our carelessness. Thank you for your patient guidance. We have marked the correction of the above error for your verification.

5. The authors did not follow the remark given in point 7 of the previous review. This remark needs to be repeated:

All results which are shown in Figure 6 c-f should be analyzed again. The charts are probably not the result of averaging (which is good, because such data should not be averaged), but they cannot therefore be the basis for quantitative conclusions. Calculations should be made for all samples and then averaged (preferably presented later in a table). Moreover, the dependencies in Fig. 6 e seem incomplete. It is difficult to draw conclusions on this basis. ...

The authors' answer to this remark is unsatisfactory. Especially since they claim that they have many repeated tests, it shouldn't be a problem to analyze them correctly. The authors should carry out this analysis correctly.

Table 1 Mechanical test results

Without treatment	Maximum force value of stretch-displacement curve (N)		1	2	3	4	5	Average
		BM	14.68	14.36	14.52	14.03	14.14	14.346
		PM	1.05	1.04	1.02	1.06	1.04	1.042
	Maximum force value of tear displacement curve (N)		1	2	3	4	5	Average
		BM	9.37	9.56	9.61	9.89	9.24	9.534
		PM	1.45	1.39	1.41	1.39	1.37	1.402
Dry heat aging treatment	Maximum force value of stretch-displacement curve (N)		1	2	3	4	5	Average
		A-BM	12.93	12.72	12.88	12.46	12.61	12.72
		A-PM	0.99	1.19	0.89	1.01	0.96	1.008
	Maximum force value of tear displacement curve (N)		1	2	3	4	5	Average
		A-BM	7.99	7.73	7.85	7.58	7.89	7.808
		A-PM	1.26	1.22	1.27	1.29	1.28	1.264

 

Response：Thanks for the reviewer’s advice. In subsection 3.2 Mechanical Properties, we have shown in Figures 6a and b the tensile and tear strengths of the BM and PM mulches before and after aging, respectively, based on the average values of the samples (including the maximum loads in the tensile and tear curves of BM and PM before and after aging in Figures 6c-f), and our aim is to reflect these two types of mulches mainly by their tensile and tear strengths The strength of the two types of membranes is also reflected by their tensile and tear strengths. Meanwhile, we are sorry that we mistakenly wrote BM and PM as PF and PE as subscripts in Figure 6a and b, which may cause your misunderstanding. We have corrected it in the picture.

In addition, we tested five groups in all the stretching and tearing experiments, but the result curve of one group of experiments is presented in the manuscript, so that readers can intuitively see the change of curve. We have analyzed the content shown in Figure 6c-f again, and the modified content has been marked in red in the manuscriptCurve results should not be average, so we choose within a reasonable error range of one of the experiments for comparison, this does not affect the result display in the show all the experimental we thought it would make the study content slightly white elephants We have the results into Table 1, and with the original experimental data(Attachment 1) for your review. Thank you for your patience.

5. The last remark applies to the text as a whole, but in particular to sections 3.3, 3.4, 3.5.2. Giving the percentage values to two decimal places, while the measurement uncertainty is in the order of a few percent, simply does not make any sense. Especially that from the examples given in version 1 of the work, the obtained percentage changes are different than in version 2 (section 3.3). Moreover, these calculations are again based on single measurements and should be based on a series of measurements.

Response：Thanks for the reviewer’s advice. We omitted the meaningless decimal point after the percentage and unified it in the whole text. And the modified content was marked in red.

 

We have corrected your comments in the manuscript and marked them in red for your review. We have checked the full manuscript again and corrected any unreasonable points. If you have any questions, please kindly give us your patience and guidance.

Reviewer 2 Report

Ok for publication

Author Response

Thank the editors and reviewers for their comments on my manuscript.

Reviewer 3 Report

The paper is much improved but would be further improved if a little more attention was given to spelling (run a spell check), grammar and formatting 

1.Some suggested edits in the Abstract and Introduction are in the attached file 

2. Section 2.5 starts with "Three controls.....

This should be replaced by "Two treatments (BM,PM) and one control (CK).

3. Section 4 Conclusions 

My suggestion is that you call this Summary and Conclusions and include a simple table of Treatments and Control vs their Yields as a summary given yield is the most important outcome. 

 

Comments for author File: Comments.docx

Author Response

The paper is much improved but would be further improved if a little more attention was given to spelling (run a spell check), grammar and formatting

1. Some suggested edits in the Abstract and Introduction are in the attached file

Response：Thanks for the reviewer’s advice. We have made modifications according to your suggestions, and have marked the revisions in red in the manuscript.

2. Section 2.5 starts with "Three controls.....This should be replaced by "Two treatments (BM,PM) and one control (CK).

Response：Thanks for the reviewer’s advice. According to your suggestions, we have perfected the language expression and marked the sentences in red in the manuscript.

3. Section 4 Conclusions

My suggestion is that you call this Summary and Conclusions and include a simple table of Treatments and Control vs their Yields as a summary given yield is the most important outcome.

Response：Thanks for the reviewer’s advice. We have modified the name of Section 4 according to your suggestion. Please refer to the table of control and output in Section 3.5.5. Tables 3 and 4, which record the yields in detail and visually present the results to the reader. Without avoiding repetition we no longer draw tables in Section 4.

 

We have corrected your comments in the manuscript and marked them in red for your review. We have checked the full manuscript again and corrected any unreasonable points. If you have any questions, please kindly give us your patience and guidance