Impact of Water and Nutrient Supplementation on Yield of Prairie Plantings of Juneberry Amelanchier alnifolia Nutt., Cultivar and Windbreak Plantings

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Overall, the abstract provides a clear overview of the study and its objectives. However, there are a few areas that could be improved:

1.      Line 10: It would be helpful to provide more context regarding the historical importance of Juneberry in the diet and culture of these tribal nations.

2.      Line 14: The wording "known cultivars" is unclear. It would be helpful to specify which cultivars were used.

3.      Line 15: It is unclear what is meant by "3 locations". It would be helpful to provide more information about the study sites.

4.      Line 16-17: The wording "irrigation during the flowering and fruiting period" is repeated twice. It could be rephrased for clarity.

5.      Line 18: It would be helpful to provide more detail about the variability in yield across the three years.

6.      Line 19-20: The wording "significant treatment interactions" is unclear. It would be helpful to specify which interactions were significant and what they indicate.

7.      Line 21: The wording "significant cumulative effect over time" is unclear. It would be helpful to clarify what is meant by this statement.

8.      Line 22-23: The wording "better yield" is subjective. It would be helpful to provide specific data on the yield increase with water and fertilization.

The introduction provides a good background on the historical and cultural significance of Juneberry to the Mandan, Hidatsa, and Arikara Tribal Nations, and the nutritional and medicinal value of the fruit. However, there are a few areas that could be improved:

1.      Line 29: "bottom land" could be rephrased for clarity.

2.      Line 31-32: The wording "important source of nutrition and medicine in the Native American diet" is repeated twice. It could be rephrased for clarity.

3.      Line 35-37: The sentence structure is awkward and could be improved for clarity.

4.      Line 38: It would be helpful to provide more information about the historical medicinal uses of Juneberry and their cultural significance.

5. Line 40: "free radical scavenging capacity" should be hyphenated as "free-radical scavenging capacity".
6. Line 41: "cronic" should be corrected to "chronic".
7. Line 46: "mediate and reduce inflammation as well" could be rephrased as "mediate and reduce inflammation, as indicated by reduced expression of anti-inflammatory markers".
8. Line 49: "pacreatic" should be corrected to "pancreatic".
9. Line 54: "chemo-protective" could be hyphenated as "chemoprotective".
10. Line 59: "members ability" could be rephrased as "members' ability".
11. Line 65: "culturally relevant" could be repeated as "culturally relevant fruit" for clarity.

12.  Line 67: It would be clearer if the sentence mentioned that the trial was conducted at three different locations, rather than just mentioning the names of the locations. So, the sentence could be revised to: "The Juneberry irrigation and fertilization trial was conducted from 2019-2021 at three locations in North Dakota, USA: White Shield, War Coulee, and Elbowoods."

13.  Line 93-95: It would be helpful to specify the amount of water and fertilizer applied to the plants under the "irrigation only" and "irrigation and fertilization" treatments. Additionally, it may be helpful to mention how the treatments were applied (e.g. drip irrigation, overhead irrigation, etc.). So, the sentence could be revised to: "Three treatments were applied to 10 consecutive plants/cultivar within each of the 4 rows: 1) no irrigation (control), 2) irrigation only (with X amount of water applied every Y days using [insert method]), and 3) irrigation and fertilization (with X amount of water and Z amount of fertilizer applied every Y days using [insert method])."

14. Line 93: The sentence is too long and could be broken down into two sentences.
15. Line 95: Specify the year when the treatments were applied.
16. Line 96: Add "at the experimental" before "site."
17. Line 97: Replace "were also" with "and were."
18. Line 98: Add "a" before "general purpose fertilizer."
19. Line 99: Remove the extra space before the open parenthesis.
20. Line 99: Specify the unit for the fertilizer concentration (e.g., ppm NPK).
21. Line 100: Add "on or around" before "the 15th of the month."
22. Line 101: Specify the distance between the reservoir and the experimental sites.
23. Line 103: Remove the extra comma after "July 10th."
24. Line 104: Specify the unit for yield (e.g., kg/ha).
25. Line 106: Replace "size varied between the locations" with "bush size varied across the treatments."
26. Line 107: Specify the location of the seedling bushes.
27. Line 109: Add "measurements" after "three."
28. Line 112: Specify the type of graph used (e.g., bar plot, scatter plot).
29. Line 114: Add "the" before "location."
30. Line 114: Specify the environmental factors included in the analysis.
31. Line 115: Add "the" before "Tukey adjusted mean separation method."
32. Line 116: Specify the version of R used.

3. Results:

The sentence "Precipitation during the flowering and fruiting period was low except for June 2020" is unclear. Please provide more details on the precipitation during the flowering and fruiting period, such as the average amount of rainfall or a comparison to normal conditions.

125. Visualization of yield ….differences (Figure 1).

Comment: This sentence could be rephrased to improve clarity. For example, "Figure 1 illustrates the variability in yield between the White Shield and War Coulee locations, and suggests the presence of cumulative treatment differences."

130. Year two and three …. for all three treatments (Figure 2b).

Comment: This sentence could be improved for clarity. For example, "The yield was greater in year two and three for all three treatments across all cultivars and locations, as shown in Figure 2b."

Line 188: "Precipitation accumulation is limited between fall and spring in McClean County, Fort Berthold Reservation where the Juneberry cultivar trials were conducted."

• Suggestion: It would be helpful to provide specific figures for the amount of precipitation received during fall and spring in the study area.

Line 189: "This restricted the soil water available for fruit development and the next years flower initiation in this perennial plant."

• Suggestion: Consider rephrasing this sentence for clarity. It is not clear what "next years flower initiation" refers to.

Line 190: "….. Juneberry [1, 19]."

• Suggestion: It would be helpful to include a brief summary of the previous studies and their findings, as well as the citation for reference.

Line 191: "The ….. bushes."

• Suggestion: Consider adding an explanation for why the upland exposed site of War Coulee had smaller bushes despite being the same age as the bushes at White Shield.

Line 193: "Therefore…. a contributing factor."

• Suggestion: Consider rephrasing this sentence for clarity. It is not clear what is meant by "location was a significant effect".

Line 194: "Since ….. production [19]."

• Suggestion: It would be helpful to briefly explain the reason for using a common volume of 0.03 m3 for analysis.

Line 202: "The previously …. in yield [19]."

• Suggestion: Consider adding a brief explanation for what "alternate year bearing" means.

Line 206: "In a Canadian …..season [20]."

• Suggestion: It would be helpful to briefly summarize the findings of the Canadian study and its relevance to the current study.

Line 210: "In the native …. did the precipitation."

• Suggestion: Consider adding an explanation for why the prior season production level accounts for more of the annual production variation than precipitation.

·         Line 214: The sentence could be rephrased as "Juneberry inflorescence initiation occurs in the axillary buds towards the end of the fruit ripening period. Resource competition (such as water or nutrients) during fruit development completion in the current season could reduce floral development for the next year, as suggested by previous studies [21]."

·         Line 218: The phrase "although precipitation was greater in July through September in 2019 (year 1)" could be moved to the beginning of the sentence for better clarity, like "In 2019 (year 1), although precipitation was greater from July through September, the yield of the control treatment did not vary significantly across years."

·         Line 223: "Although impacted by predation in the third year of data collection" could be revised to "Despite being impacted by predation in the third year of data collection".

·         Line 226: "Cultivars cost about $5/plant plus shipping and seedling plants can be purchased from the state nursery for $1.5/plant." This sentence could be rephrased for clarity, like "Compared to the cost of clonally propagated cultivars which are approximately $5/plant plus shipping, seedling plants can be purchased from the state nursery for a more affordable price of $1.5/plant."

·         Line 230: "fruit from cultivars suggesting that the use of seedling material may provide a more functional food" could be revised to "fruit from cultivars. This suggests that the use of seedling material may provide a more functional food."

·         Line 233: "Currently there are no specific recommendations for Juneberry fertilization" could be rephrased to "Currently, there are no standardized recommendations for Juneberry fertilization."

·         Line 235: "as a spring broadcast of granular fertilizer would not be readily incorporated into the soil with the limited early spring precipitation" could be revised as "since early spring precipitation is limited, a spring broadcast of granular fertilizer would not be easily incorporated into the soil."

·         Line 242: "increased nutrient availability could promote shading within the bush interior, limiting the productive area of the bush" could be rephrased for clarity, like "as nutrient availability increases, it may promote shading within the bush interior and ultimately limit the productive area of the bush. Therefore, future studies should consider pruning strategies to maintain an open sunlight canopy."

·         Line 235: Change "with the limited early spring precipitation" to "due to limited early spring precipitation."

·         Line 236: Change "nutrient resources" to "nutrient availability."

·         Line 238: Change "fertigation" to "fertilization."

·         Line 239: Change "This will be particularly important" to "This is especially important."

·         Line 242: Change "promote shading" to "result in shading."

 

Author Response

All comments were addressed and file with detailed response is attached.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Modifications have been made to manuscript and detailed response is in the attached pdf

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

Methodology

1. Please provide the details of soil qualities used in the experiments (pH, Total N, P, K,….)

2. Please provide the details of water qualities used from the Sakakawea Reservoir.

3. Lines 93-102, Do the treatment 2 (irrigated treatment) and 3 (fertilised treatment) receive the same total volume of water (irrigation)? Please indicate, or provide more details of the total volume of irrigation per plant.

4. Lines 96, and 100, the irrigation rate, please use the same unit (such as liter/week/bush)

Results

5. The authors presented Figure 1-3 with too complicated and difficult to understand as there is no explanation of the results, and cannot find the conclusion for main results.

6. Every figure needs a statistical analysis.

7. The results are more focus on experimental factors (correlations), but less focus on details and effects of management practices as shown in the title.

8. No explanation for different yields between years.

Discussion

9. Lines 221-223, the authors discussed nutrient status in soil; it is interesting point, please provide the soil properties in these experiments (before and after cultivation).

10. Need more link between results and discussion, and the details of management practice.

11. No conclusion in the manuscript.

Author Response

Review comments were addressed and detailed response file attached.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 4 Report

Review

of the Manuscript ID: horticulturae-2368268

Title: Establishing management practices for improved yield in Juneberry Amelanchier alnifolia Nutt., cultivar and windbreak plantings.

Authors: Kerry Hartman, Dilmini Alahakoon, Anne Fennell

 

The work is interesting, but in my opinion, farming practices are not only irrigation and fertigation that influence the yielding of Juneberry fruit.

The manuscript requires corrections. I have included my comments in the pdf file as the reviewer’s comments.

 

In my opinion, the authors should be asked the question, is it possible to compare the yield of the White Shield and War Coulee orchards planted in 2004 with the Elbowoods orchard planted in 2016, which is just starting to bear fruit?

Was a methodological error here?

First of all, soil tests should be carried out on the soil's abundance of nutrients such as: N, P, K, Ca, Mg and the abundance in C-organic as well as pH, CEC, base saturation and salinity.

These parameters should be comparable for all locations. Then authors can compare three orchards with each other. Otherwise, you need to treat the study as three separate field experiments!

The publication is to be a Brief Report but Juneberry yielding experiment should consider not only precipitations but also temperatures, date of last frost, number of flowers, number of fruit buds, fruit harvest time, Fruit yield (kg shurb^-1), 100 fruit weight (g), Fruit number per bunch, Bunch length(cm) and others (see article: http://www.zemdirbyste-agriculture.lt/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/106_4_str45.pdf ).

 

Regards

 

Reviewer

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Reviewer comments addressed and response file is attached.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

It is hard to know where authors made the revision there is no line number and no statement what the authors provided extra information against the comments raised by the reviewer. Simply indicating that correctted, correctted or rephrased is not enough to compare the revision. Therefore, I suggest the authors to follow the guidelines of journal when submitting revision. Changes should be provided by the line number in at the time of revision so as to make the revision process easier for the reviewers. 

Author Response

The changed line #s are indicated in blue in the attachment.  Please note that other reviewers suggestions may have changed paragraphs.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 3 Report

1. Line 267, Currently there are no standardized recommendations for Juneberry fertilization. Please include the results from the manuscript showing that yield could be increased if watered and fertilized during fruit development. (if it is an important finding, as it was shown in the abstract).

2. Line 277, please correct to be Future studies...

Author Response

1. Line 267, Currently there are no standardized recommendations for Juneberry fertilization. Please include the results from the manuscript showing that yield could be increased if watered and fertilized during fruit development. (if it is an important finding, as it was shown in the abstract).  Response:  Added: Line 273-277: This study indicates that fertilization during the flowering and fruiting period of 2019 -2021 resulted in increased yield in 2021. Future studies would be best served by using new seedling plantings, tracking fruit size and adding additional fertilization treatments, leaf foliar analysis and a fertilization only treatment.  this 

2. Line 277, please correct to be Future studies... Response: corrected.  Future studies should also consider pruning strategies to maintain an open sunlight canopy as nutrient availability increases, it may result in shading within the bush interior and ultimately limit the productive are of the bush. 

Reviewer 4 Report

Review

of the Manuscript ID: horticulturae-2368268

Title: Establishing management practices for improved yield in Juneberry Amelanchier alnifolia Nutt., cultivar and windbreak plantings.

Authors: Kerry Hartman, Dilmini Alahakoon, Anne Fennell

 

The paper still requires small editorial corrections, which should be in accordance with the requirements for authors publishing in MDPI.

I put my comments in a pdf file.

Here are the most important of them:

 

Row 10 in the abstract, please also use the name Saskatoon berry

Row 28: Please reorder alphabetically

Row 42: Please use the term Juneberry as in the title for the rest of the manuscript.

Rows 75, 79, 83: Please provide the exact coordinates of the sites. XX°XX’XX”N and YY°YY’YY”W

Rows 76, 80, 84: Please provide the methods of pH, N, P, K, and C-org determination with the equipment used (producer name, producer city, country)

Rows 76, 80, 84: Please  use SI units, please give the doses in g kg^-1 or g dm^-3

Rows 100, 101: Please change gallons to SI units

Row 106 and others: Please  change NPK/plant to NPK plant^-1

Row 111 and others: g/0.03 m³ please change to g 0.03 m^-3

 

 

Regards

 

 

Reviewer

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Row 10 in the abstract, please also use the name Saskatoon berry

Response: This has been added. 

Row 28: Please reorder alphabetically

Response: Native stands of Amelanchier alnifolia Nutt. (Juneberry, Saskatoon berry, or Serviceberry)

Row 42: Please use the term Juneberry as in the title for the rest of the manuscript.

Response: Phytochemical analysis of the Juneberry fruit shows a high phenolic content and free

Rows 75, 79, 83: Please provide the exact coordinates of the sites. XX°XX’XX”N and YY°YY’YY”W

Response: The coordinates have been removed at the request of the tribe. 

Rows 76, 80, 84: Please provide the methods of pH, N, P, K, and C-org determination with the equipment used (producer name, producer city, country)

Response: Edited with commercial laboratory inserted: WARD Laboratories, Inc. Kearney, NE, USA .

Rows 76, 80, 84: Please  use SI units, please give the doses in g kg^-1 or g dm^-3

Response: solution in ppm was used instead of dry fertilizer.  Gallons is replaced with liters

Rows 100, 101: Please change gallons to SI units 

Response: Converted to liters

Row 106 and others: Please  change NPK/plant to NPK plant^-1

Response: This sentence was changed: with each bush receiving 880 ppm N (Each liter contained 46.5 ppm nitrogen) on or near the 15^th of the month.

Row 111 and others: g/0.03 m³ please change to g 0.03 m^-3

Response: Yield (g/0.03 m-³) collected once per bush for seven randomly selected bushes in  and in all other places in the manuscript.

Round 3

Reviewer 1 Report

Recommended to accept