Development of test bench to determine the distribution of granular fertilizers in planting rows using spiral roller, two spiral rollers and fluted roller

Gabriel Ganancini Zimmermann; Samir Paulo Jasper; Leonardo Leônidas Kmiecik; Lauro Strapasson Neto; Thiago Xavier da Silva; Yasser Alabi Oiole

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0243799

Peer Review History

Original SubmissionApril 10, 2020
13 Aug 2020 Decision Letter - Rafiq Islam, Editor PONE-D-20-09797 Development of a low-cost test bench to determine the distribution of granular fertilizers in planting rows using spiral roller, two spiral rollers and fluted roller PLOS ONE Dear Dr. Zimmermann, Thank you for submitting your manuscript to PLOS ONE. After careful consideration, we feel that it has merit but does not fully meet PLOS ONE’s publication criteria as it currently stands. Therefore, we invite you to submit a revised version of the manuscript that addresses the points raised during the review process. ============================== The authors need to follow the comments from both reviewers especially addressed the concerns raised by the 2nd reviewer. The title needs to be more focused with inclusion of important key words to understand the research study. Should add relevant information in the introduction to justify why the research was conducted in relation to the comparative efficiency of the conventional and new technologies. Also, focus on economics and other concerns. ============================== Please submit your revised manuscript by Sep 27 2020 11:59PM. If you will need more time than this to complete your revisions, please reply to this message or contact the journal office at plosone@plos.org. When you're ready to submit your revision, log on to https://www.editorialmanager.com/pone/ and select the 'Submissions Needing Revision' folder to locate your manuscript file. Please include the following items when submitting your revised manuscript: A rebuttal letter that responds to each point raised by the academic editor and reviewer(s). You should upload this letter as a separate file labeled 'Response to Reviewers'. A marked-up copy of your manuscript that highlights changes made to the original version. 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Kind regards, Rafiq Islam, Ph.D. Academic Editor PLOS ONE Journal Requirements: When submitting your revision, we need you to address these additional requirements. 1. Please ensure that your manuscript meets PLOS ONE's style requirements, including those for file naming. The PLOS ONE style templates can be found at https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/file?id=wjVg/PLOSOne_formatting_sample_main_body.pdf and https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/file?id=ba62/PLOSOne_formatting_sample_title_authors_affiliations.pdf 2. Please include captions for your Supporting Information files at the end of your manuscript, and update any in-text citations to match accordingly. Please see our Supporting Information guidelines for more information: http://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/supporting-information. [Note: HTML markup is below. Please do not edit.] Reviewers' comments: Reviewer's Responses to Questions Comments to the Author 1. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions? The manuscript must describe a technically sound piece of scientific research with data that supports the conclusions. Experiments must have been conducted rigorously, with appropriate controls, replication, and sample sizes. The conclusions must be drawn appropriately based on the data presented. Reviewer #1: Partly Reviewer #2: Yes ******** 2. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously? Reviewer #1: Yes Reviewer #2: Yes ****** 3. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available? The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception (please refer to the Data Availability Statement in the manuscript PDF file). The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified. Reviewer #1: Yes Reviewer #2: Yes ****** 4. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English? PLOS ONE does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here. Reviewer #1: Yes Reviewer #2: Yes ****** 5. Review Comments to the Author Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters) Reviewer #1: The title of the article does not correspond to the content. The article lacks data on the cost of the test bench and on the cost of the study. In the presented figures 4a-4f and 5a-5f, it is necessary to expand the distribution of data along the Y-axis. This is necessary for greater clarity of the figures. In the conclusions and annotations, it is necessary to indicate the cost of the test bench and how cheap it is to work in comparison with analogs. Reviewer #2: The study sought to develop a low-cost test bench to determine the distribution of granular fertilizers in planting rows using spiral roller, two spiral rollers and fluted roller. The introductory section of the manuscript appears disjointed and incoherent. The aim of the study is conspicuously not made clear in the write-up. The authors failed to compare the output flow rates of the developed test bench with already existing spreaders. What was the basis for comparison relative to the efficiency of this newly developed technology with already existing technologies? The authors again failed to support their findings with what has been done elsewhere. The manuscript actually lacks the required literature review. ****** 6. PLOS authors have the option to publish the peer review history of their article (what does this mean?). If published, this will include your full peer review and any attached files. If you choose “no”, your identity will remain anonymous but your review may still be made public. Do you want your identity to be public for this peer review?** For information about this choice, including consent withdrawal, please see our Privacy Policy. Reviewer #1: No Reviewer #2: No [NOTE: If reviewer comments were submitted as an attachment file, they will be attached to this email and accessible via the submission site. Please log into your account, locate the manuscript record, and check for the action link "View Attachments". If this link does not appear, there are no attachment files.] While revising your submission, please upload your figure files to the Preflight Analysis and Conversion Engine (PACE) digital diagnostic tool, https://pacev2.apexcovantage.com/. PACE helps ensure that figures meet PLOS requirements. To use PACE, you must first register as a user. Registration is free. Then, login and navigate to the UPLOAD tab, where you will find detailed instructions on how to use the tool. If you encounter any issues or have any questions when using PACE, please email PLOS at figures@plos.org. Please note that Supporting Information files do not need this step. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0243799.r001
Revision 1
28 Sep 2020 Author Response Review Comments to the Author Reviewer #1: The title of the article does not correspond to the content. The article lacks data on the cost of the test bench and on the cost of the study. In the presented figures 4a-4f and 5a-5f, it is necessary to expand the distribution of data along the Y-axis. This is necessary for greater clarity of the figures. In the conclusions and annotations, it is necessary to indicate the cost of the test bench and how cheap it is to work in comparison with analogs. A: The title of the manuscript was changed, removing the term low cost, and the economic direction of the development of the structure and its quotations. A new paragraph was added in the introduction, referring to the justification and importance of the work. The expansion of the data distribution of the commented figures, could not be attended for statistical and software reasons. As for the cost results in the conclusion, it will no longer be necessary due to the change in the title of the manuscript. Reviewer #2: The study sought to develop a low-cost test bench to determine the distribution of granular fertilizers in planting rows using spiral roller, two spiral rollers and fluted roller. The introductory section of the manuscript appears disjointed and incoherent. The aim of the study is conspicuously not made clear in the write-up. The authors failed to compare the output flow rates of the developed test bench with already existing spreaders. What was the basis for comparison relative to the efficiency of this newly developed technology with already existing technologies? The authors again failed to support their findings with what has been done elsewhere. The manuscript actually lacks the required literature review. A: The title of the manuscript was changed, removing the term low cost, and the economic direction of the development of the structure and its quotations. A new paragraph was added in the introduction, referring to the justification and importance of the work. The output flow rates were addressed before the descriptive statistics of the data and were not compared to other literature because there were no methods of evaluating the spreaders yet, so it was not possible to add new changes. This test bench was developed for this proposal to evaluate the regularity of spreader distribution, and the existing works do not meet the technical conditions for comparison. Attachments Attachment Submitted filename: Response to Reviewers.pdf https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0243799.r002
26 Nov 2020 Decision Letter - Mohammad Mehdi Rashidi, Editor Development of test bench to determine the distribution of granular fertilizers in planting rows using spiral roller, two spiral rollers and fluted roller PONE-D-20-09797R1 Dear Dr. Zimmermann, We’re pleased to inform you that your manuscript has been judged scientifically suitable for publication and will be formally accepted for publication once it meets all outstanding technical requirements. Within one week, you’ll receive an e-mail detailing the required amendments. When these have been addressed, you’ll receive a formal acceptance letter and your manuscript will be scheduled for publication. An invoice for payment will follow shortly after the formal acceptance. To ensure an efficient process, please log into Editorial Manager at http://www.editorialmanager.com/pone/, click the 'Update My Information' link at the top of the page, and double check that your user information is up-to-date. If you have any billing related questions, please contact our Author Billing department directly at authorbilling@plos.org. If your institution or institutions have a press office, please notify them about your upcoming paper to help maximize its impact. If they’ll be preparing press materials, please inform our press team as soon as possible -- no later than 48 hours after receiving the formal acceptance. Your manuscript will remain under strict press embargo until 2 pm Eastern Time on the date of publication. For more information, please contact onepress@plos.org. Kind regards, Mohammad Mehdi Rashidi Academic Editor PLOS ONE Additional Editor Comments (optional): The revised version could be accepted in the present form. Editor Reviewers' comments: Reviewer's Responses to Questions Comments to the Author 1. If the authors have adequately addressed your comments raised in a previous round of review and you feel that this manuscript is now acceptable for publication, you may indicate that here to bypass the “Comments to the Author” section, enter your conflict of interest statement in the “Confidential to Editor” section, and submit your "Accept" recommendation. Reviewer #1: All comments have been addressed Reviewer #2: All comments have been addressed ******** 2. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions? The manuscript must describe a technically sound piece of scientific research with data that supports the conclusions. Experiments must have been conducted rigorously, with appropriate controls, replication, and sample sizes. The conclusions must be drawn appropriately based on the data presented. Reviewer #1: Yes Reviewer #2: Yes ****** 3. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously? Reviewer #1: Yes Reviewer #2: Yes ****** 4. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available? The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception (please refer to the Data Availability Statement in the manuscript PDF file). The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified. Reviewer #1: Yes Reviewer #2: Yes ****** 5. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English? PLOS ONE does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here. Reviewer #1: Yes Reviewer #2: Yes ****** 6. Review Comments to the Author Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters) Reviewer #1: (No Response) Reviewer #2: General comments This manuscript is an improved version of what was earlier on submitted. The comments raised by the reviewers in the previous review have been adequately addressed. The development of test bench to determine the distribution of granular fertilizers will undoubtedly serve as a prototype that will improve the application and distribution of granular-based fertilizers for that will increase fertilizer use efficiency for enhanced ecosystem functions and services. ****** 7. PLOS authors have the option to publish the peer review history of their article (what does this mean?). If published, this will include your full peer review and any attached files. If you choose “no”, your identity will remain anonymous but your review may still be made public. Do you want your identity to be public for this peer review?** For information about this choice, including consent withdrawal, please see our Privacy Policy. Reviewer #1: No Reviewer #2: No Attachments Attachment Submitted filename: General comments_PONE-D-20-09797R1.docx https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0243799.r003
Formally Accepted
3 Dec 2020 Acceptance Letter - Mohammad Mehdi Rashidi, Editor PONE-D-20-09797R1 Development of test bench to determine the distribution of granular fertilizers in planting rows using spiral roller, two spiral rollers and fluted roller Dear Dr. Zimmermann: I'm pleased to inform you that your manuscript has been deemed suitable for publication in PLOS ONE. Congratulations! Your manuscript is now with our production department. If your institution or institutions have a press office, please let them know about your upcoming paper now to help maximize its impact. If they'll be preparing press materials, please inform our press team within the next 48 hours. Your manuscript will remain under strict press embargo until 2 pm Eastern Time on the date of publication. For more information please contact onepress@plos.org. If we can help with anything else, please email us at plosone@plos.org. Thank you for submitting your work to PLOS ONE and supporting open access. Kind regards, PLOS ONE Editorial Office Staff on behalf of Professor Mohammad Mehdi Rashidi Academic Editor PLOS ONE https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0243799.r004

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