Sugar Beet Harvests under Modern Climatic Conditions in the Belgorod Region (Southwest Russia)
, Alexandr B. Solovyov 4, Yury G. Chendev 4 and Lalith M. Rankoth 2Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Main suggestions to the authors:
- Data and methods section, lines 79-88 and 103-106. It is strongly suggested to describe with enough detail the method to calculate the BCP, particularly because this reference is not accessible easily to areader.
- Data and methods section: lines 97-100. In my opinion the authors should consider two thresholds: one minimum that is correct 10°C, but should consider an upper limit of appropriate temperatura depending on the crop, as an example, the upper limit of maximum temperature for corn is 30°C.
- Results section, lines 240-248. The units used in the manuscript must be in accordance with the International System of Units, therefore, the units as centners ha-1 must be changed.
- Results section, lines 253-265. The content of this paragraph should be extended to ensure the reader's understanding in sufficient detail and why a specialist should have enough information to replicate the procedures mentioned here.
- Results, lines 263-265. Authors should demonstrate with statistical methods, and data, what is described in this paragraph.
- Summary and conclusions section. This section should be updated according to the modifications suggested in the previous comments.
Author Response
Response to Reviewer 1:
General Comments:
Thank you for your time and effort in the review. These have helped make the paper stronger. We’ve addressed each comment as stated below and most of these are in accord with the reviewer comments. The point-by-point comments are shown below. In the annotated manuscript, the red shows changes and additions and green shows subtractions.
Main Comments:
- BCP and moisture index (Lines 79 -88 and 103 – 106): Thank you for this comment. The reviewer is correct, additional text was needed and added below Eq. 2 to describe the variables in those equations. We also include two more references [25] and [26] as well as cite fore frequently those that are in the English literature to make the calculations clear and accessible.
- Line 97 – 100 (upper threshold): The reviewer makes a good point, and text is added to address this. The most complete realization of the biological potential of sugar beet productivity is possible in conditions when the main phases of growth of the above-ground and underground parts of plants, synthesis of dry substances and sugar storage occur during a period with temperatures close to optimal for these processes, i.e. in the intervals of 15 -- 23°C. For this case, for the most intensive and productive photosynthesis, a temperature of about 20°C is necessary, although even a very large temperature gradient (10 -- 30°C) in quantitative terms affects the results of photosynthesis in general only slightly. Full depression of photosynthesis occurs only when the temperatures reach 40° C, but it continues to prevail over the breath. For many other crops (e.g., potatoes) at this temperature, the respiration greatly exceeds photosynthesis. Therefore, sugar beet is a fairly heat-resistant crop in the Belgorod Region since 40oC has occurred only extremely rarely. It is also important that at the final stages of vegetation, adult plants that have reduced the intensity of the production process can tolerate a significant (up to minus 3 -- 5°C) decrease in temperature without compromising the quality of root crops.
- Line 240-248: (and elsewhere) We changed centners to tons as suggested by reviewer. Also for consistency we use the US spelling (tons) not the English (tonnes).
- Line 253 – 265: (and elsewhere) Text describing the techniques is found at the end of section two. However, text is added to demonstrate how we obtained the periodicity. We explain how many years were used in the time series and how we arrived at the periodicity. Also, in section 2 we add the length of the time series used in the Fourier decomposition.
- Line 263-265: Statistics were done to divide the data by ENSO phase and NAO phase and shown in Table 1. This strategy was used for atmospheric phenomenon by this research group and a reference is given.
- Summary and conclusions revised in accord with new analysis and changes above as well as comments from reviewer three.
Reviewer 2 Report
It is a very good approach!
Just a comment. I 'd prefer not to write the word reference x, every time you want to citate something.
Line 178--> What do you mean "...in approximately 1998"?
Thank you.
Author Response
Response to Reviewer 2:
General Comments:
Thank you for your time and effort in the review. These have helped make the paper stronger. Thank you also for your compliments. We’ve addressed each comment in accord with the reviewer comments. The point-by-point comments are shown below. In the annotated manuscript, the red shows changes and additions and green shows subtractions.
Minor Comments:
- Repetitive use of “reference”. This is reduced to one time per paragraph or less.
- Line 178: We agree with the comment and “approximately” is removed.
Reviewer 3 Report
Line 38. What for did you use a semi-colon. Maybe a misprint?
Line 75 It should be southwestern Russia or southwest of Russia. Besides, you must use a unified terminology and geographical names throughout the text. And you name your country two ways: Russia in the text and Russian Federation in the Figure 1. Please, use one geographical name.
Lines 80-82. You cited some literature [16, 17, 18], however, it seems to be inaccessible because of several reasons: it cannot be found in many non-Russian libraries, it is not stored on the Internet, and, the main drawback, it is in Russian.
Line 97. Are you really sure that the statement is true? As far as I know, HTC is mainly used in CIS countries only.
Line 117. Check the format of brackets in the formula 2a
Line 126-127. "The mathematical and 126 statistical methodologies used here can be found in any elementary statistical textbook" - delete this phrase. It is inapplicable in scientific paper.
Figures 2, 3, 4 ,5 ,6, 9 must be replaced with correctly inserted graphs with all the axes visible. Do not insert Figures as cropped images.
Figure 3. HTC is a highly variable index, it is difficult to evaluate growing conditions using this index. It does not take into account too much factors, for example, distribution of precipitation by time and space, their efficiency, extreme temperature phenomena. If you calculated the index for the whole growing period, that resulted in such a great fluctuations you mention in the paper. It is advisable to show the trenf line for this index and find out whether this trend could be relied upon.
Figure 4 should be in English. Use an English image, without Russian symbols and names.
Figure 5 is absolutely perplexing. Nothing could be nade out from it.
Line 240. What is weighted average yield. Methodology of its calculation?
You provided trend lines in the Figure 6 but did not provide any results of statistical analysis (R^2, equation, etc.) so that we had an opportunity to see whether these trends are significantly dependent on the studied factors or just an occasional phenomenon.
Lines 258-260. You mentioned that you proved "statistical significance at the probability level of 95%" but I did not find any proofs of it. No results of ANOVA, F-test, nothing. And graphs are not the proof. Perhaps, I do not understand something, so, I am looking forward to hear your explanation.
Lines 275-278. The information regarding the importance of sugar-beet inclusion in crop rotations is not needed in this paper.
Lines 279-287. Do we need this commonly known information on sugar-beet? I think that this paragraph must be avoided or shortened.
Line 301 - Belgorod region, Line 306, 312 - Belgorod oblast. So, what geographical name is correct? Also, sometimes you write Region incapital letter and sometimes - in usual. So, check and re-check throughout the text.
Figure 9. We need R^2 of the trends.
Why did you use a semi-colon at the end of the phrase? (Line 344)
Please, make you conclusions more concrete, do not tell us all the background information, just concentrate on the main results and their value.
Besides, it seems that there are some minor mistakes in the text, so, carefully revise your English in the paper.
Author Response
Response to Reviewer 3:
General Comments:
Thank you for your time and effort in the review. These have helped make the paper stronger. The point-by-point comments are shown below. In the annotated manuscript, the red shows changes and additions and green shows subtractions.
Main points:
Line 38: Semi colon is changed to a colon.
Line 75: Agreed, we’ve changed “Federation” and unified the terminology.
Line 80 – 82: This literature is the original and cited here. But, we cite English language references in the rest of the chapter to offset this.
Line 97: These metrics were developed in Russia and traditionally used by CIS coutnries. Research groups are finding these metrics to be useful tools in their tool box. We add two references to address this point. We also modify the text a bit to be more accurate.
Line 117: Bracket in Formula 2a is fixed.
Line 126-127: Agreed, this phrase is removed.
Figures 2,3,4,5,6,9: All are replaced with better graphics and English text.
Figure 3: The HTC is repeated in Fig. 9 with a trend line. We evaluate all trends using ANOVA and the F-test.
Figure 4: This is changes to English and city names are changes to English.
Figure 5: This figure is revised.
Line 240: We define the weighted average in the text as suggested by the reviewer.
Figure 6: All trend lines are tested as described in section 2 using ANOVA (the F-test). Every trend in now tested.
Line 258 -260: The statistical test used comes from Wilks (2006) and is described in lines 135- 148 assuming either a red or white noise spectrum. Those tests are also in Figs. 7 and 8 and also in the caption of Fig.7
Line 275-278 : Text removed as suggested by the reviewer.
Line 279-287: This text is removed as suggested by the reviewer.
Line 301: Line 306 – 312: There were five instances of “oblast”. We used find and replace all, so these are not marked in green. But, the terminology is unified as suggested by the reviewer.
Figure 9: Sugariness is also shown in Fig 6 and we tested it there in that discussion. HTC trend is tested here. But all trends are tested.
Line 344: The colon is changed to a period.
Conclusions: this section is rewritten to take away repetitive text and unnecessary text. It also notes that statistical tests were done on trends and highlights a few more results.
Final comment: As suggested by the reviewer we did a careful read of the paper for English grammar. We found over a dozen.
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
I would like to thank the authors for attending the comments made by the referee.
However, my only two final suggestions to improve your manuscript are the following:
- To assess the climate trends of the regional anual time series, the non-parametric test of Theil-Send are strongly suggested. (Sen, 1968; theil, 1950).
- To Identify the presence of regional and local monthly trends on climate time series, recent studies have shown a good performance of the Mann-Kendal test. (https://doi.org/10.1016/j.agee.2016.03.041.)
Author Response
Reply to Reviewer 1:
General Comments:
Thank you for your review comments. These have made the paper stronger. All three points were addressed as suggested by the reviewer. In the annotated manuscript, red color is changes and additions made, while green color is deletions.
Main Comments:
- We used the Theil – Sen test on these trends as suggested and reported the results.
- We used the Mann-Kendall test on these trends as suggested and reported the results.
Reviewer 3 Report
6 out of 42 literature sources are very old, and about a quarter of references are based on papers published in Russian. Just imagine that some foreigners reading your paper would like to look through the literature you quoted in the paper. They won’t be able to understand it or even get an access. It seems that it is possible to substitute some Russian sources with alternative English ones to enhance the quality of the paper.
Figures 2, 5, 6, 9 are still of a poor quality. Blurred images, unclear presentation. Trend line is required in the Figure 3. Different fonts used in the Figure 9 for the legend and regression equations. No equations of trend lines in the Figures 2, 3, 5. If you provided equations in the Figure 9, provide them throughout all the Figures, or delete them everywhere. Unacceptable format of numbers in the Figure 4. Use appropriate format for decimals. Use unified symbols for yields (ton ha-1 or t/ha) in the text of the paper and in the Figures 5 and 6.
The information on the methodology of weighted average yield calculation should be placed in the section Data and Methods.
Author Response
Reply to Reviewer 2:
General Comments:
Thank you for your review comments. These have made the paper stronger. All three points were addressed as suggested by the reviewer. In the annotated manuscript, red color is changes and additions made, while green color is deletions.
Main Comments:
- The older literature was the original cited. With these and with Russian text citations, we’ve paired them with an English language text. Or in the case of older literature, cited recent literature for the calculations. This resulted in a few changes, and removal of a reference.
- The Figures identified by the reviewer are revised for clarity and uniformity.
- Text on weighted average moved to the appropriate place in the data section as suggested by this reviewer.
