Precise Sensing of Leaf Temperatures for Smart Farm Applications

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Overall good presentation and study.

A couple of small questions:
How was the accuracy of infrared sensors and application to measuring the temperature of leaves checked and confirmed?

What is the spot size of each in the array, do they overlap or leave some gaps, and if so, how big? What was the distance from the sensor to the leaves? Does one sensor senses part of one leaf or several leaves and shows the average temperature?

Are these fluctuations in leaf temperature common theoretically or were detected by other measurement techniques (in other studies?)? If yes, do the patterns of fluctuation match?

When were windows opened (on what time or condition, does it shows in the data)? How thermal curtains look like and how far away from leaves or infrared lines of sight are they?

The software block diagram is nonreadable.

Author Response

Thank you. Please find our response in the attached file.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

·         The author could benefit from more concise language to make it easier for readers to understand.

·         the author could consider providing a clearer explanation of the potential benefits of leaf temperature sensing for greenhouse farming.

·         In the introduction, the author could improve the text by providing more specific examples and sources to support their claims. For example, when discussing the benefits of CEA, the author could provide statistics on how CEA has increased crop yields compared to traditional farming methods. When discussing the challenges facing smart-farm applications, the author could provide examples of these challenges in practice.

·         The authors could consider adding some information about the potential limitations of their approach, such as the cost of implementing a smart greenhouse system or the difficulty of interpreting the data collected by the sensors.

·         In the discussion, the sentence "Measurement of the leaf temperature is used with thermocouples for study, but it causes measurement errors due to the direct contact with the leaf, which results in heat conduction" could be rephrased for better clarity.

·         Add this citation to the list of references as it pertains to the topics discussed, and also mention the machine learning algorithm:

1.     Jabir, B., & Falih, N. (2022). Deep learning-based decision support system for weeds detection in wheat fields. International Journal of Electrical and Computer Engineering, 12(1), 816. Jabir, B., & Falih, N. (2022). Deep learning-based decision support system for weeds detection in wheat fields. International Journal of Electrical and Computer Engineering, 12(1), 816.

2.     Jabir, B., Falih, N., & Rahmani, K. (2021). Accuracy and Efficiency Comparison of Object Detection Open-Source Models. International Journal of Online & Biomedical Engineering, 17(5)

Author Response

Thank you. Please find our response in the attached file.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 3 Report

The article describes a method for controlling the greenhouse microclimate by measuring leaf temperature.

I have a few comments.

The introduction, in my opinion, contains my excess information and can be shortened.

Materials and methods are described in sufficient detail, it may be necessary to remove unnecessary information.

Table 3 indicates that greenhouses with tomatoes and strawberries were selected for the experiment, however, yield results are given only for tomatoes.

For which of the greenhouses are the data in Figure 4 and 5?

In my opinion, the results section should be supplemented with additional data (for example, how the photosynthesis of plants changed, whether there was an effect on the composition of photosynthetic pigments).

In the conclusion, the main conclusions should be briefly indicated and the areas of application of the results obtained should be indicated, the rest of the information should be transferred to the discussion section.

Text of the manuscript contains a lot of lengthy words, general information indirectly related to the research topic, and contains few specific results.

Author Response

Thank you. Please find our response in the attached file.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 4 Report

I have mixed feelings about this article.

On the one hand:

·         it is well developed;

·         it has all the necessary sections corresponding to the study;

·         this work normally formatted;

·         English at a sufficient level.

But on the other hand, it raises many questions:

1. The methodology is not fully understood. Apparently, the authors use only one infrared detector. And if the sun shines on this particular leaf, or, conversely, will it be in the shade? What if there is a branch in the signal path? How will the measurement accuracy be affected if the leaf is dusty or wet? What if it is turned at an angle? How does the distance to the leaf affect? How does evaporation affect the measurement accuracy? What happens if the detector lens is covered with dew?

In my opinion, it is rather doubtful to trust the measurements of only one sensor.

2. The authors in the study showed a very obvious very high correlation between the measurements of an infrared detector and a conventional temperature sensor. Then the question arises in general about the need for this work and the use of such sophisticated equipment.

3. Emphasis is placed throughout the work that the experiments were performed on tomatoes. But it is not entirely clear how significant this fact is and what impact it had on the results. What would be the difference if the experiments were carried out on other vegetables?

4. Conclusions to the work are rather vague. They do not answer the main questions:

Why was all this done? What improvements have been made? What is new invented?

5. Formatting is broken in Conclusions.

6. Appendix A. It is not clear why in a scientific article the datasheet data should be given. What practical value do they have in the context of the problem under discussion? I understand if the authors justified the choice of a hardware platform for their task. But this is not the case in this work.

7. Figure S1 is very small. Can't make out the inscriptions. I recommend leaving only the prototype.

8. The same remarks apply to the block diagram. It would be nice to indicate what software it was made in (I think it's LabVIEW, but I'm not sure).

9. In general, the references are well formatted, but there are errors in [26], [33], [38].

Author Response

Thank you. Please find our response in the attached file.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 3 Report

The authors have revised the article. I have no more questions.

Reviewer 4 Report

The authors have revised the article. I have no more critical recommendations.

Some minor recommendations:

1. I do recommend to remove Table S1.

2. Incorrect doi formatting in [6], [27], [39], [42], [43].

3. In table 4, write the transcript for r at the head of the table.