PONE-D-22-07125Formulation of substrates with agricultural and forestry wastes for Camellia oleifera Abel seedling cultivationPLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Zhang,

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.

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ACADEMIC EDITOR: 

After perusing the manuscript, I realized you did not follow some of the manuscript formatting structure as required by PLOS ONE. The following were identified as issues as regard submission to the Journal.

• No line numbering is seen in the manuscript despite clearly stated in the authors manuscript submission guidelines.
• The out-of-text or list of references at the end of the manuscript were not handled according the requirement of PLOS ONE, what was done appears to be a different referencing formatting style,
• There are also few grammatical errors to be corrected.
• Avoid the use of ‘we’ in the abstract and the paper. Instead use rather “the paper or study ….”
• The tables and figures were also not handled according to the format. Within the text the positions of tables and figures are supposed to be indicated as “Table 1” and “Fig. 1” and not by inserting the specific tables and figures there. Rather the tables and figures as well as well their respective captions expected to be sent to the end of the manuscript separately. 

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Please submit your revised manuscript by May 07 2022 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.

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If applicable, we recommend that you deposit your laboratory protocols in protocols.io to enhance the reproducibility of your results. Protocols.io assigns your protocol its own identifier (DOI) so that it can be cited independently in the future. For instructions see: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/submission-guidelines#loc-laboratory-protocols. Additionally, PLOS ONE offers an option for publishing peer-reviewed Lab Protocol articles, which describe protocols hosted on protocols.io. Read more information on sharing protocols at https://plos.org/protocols?utm_medium=editorial-email&utm_source=authorletters&utm_campaign=protocols.

We look forward to receiving your revised manuscript.

Kind regards,

Felix Yao Huemabu Kutsanedzie, Ph.D

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

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When you resubmit, please ensure that you provide the correct grant numbers for the awards you received for your study in the ‘Funding Information’ section.

3. Thank you for stating the following in the Acknowledgments Section of your manuscript: 

"The authors are grateful for the financial support from the National Key R＆D

Program of China (Grant No. 2019YFD1001602) and the Provincial Department of

Science and Technology of Zhejiang, China( Grant NO.2017C02022)."

We note that you have provided funding information that is not currently declared in your Funding Statement. However, funding information should not appear in the Acknowledgments section or other areas of your manuscript. We will only publish funding information present in the Funding Statement section of the online submission form. 

Please remove any funding-related text from the manuscript and let us know how you would like to update your Funding Statement. Currently, your Funding Statement reads as follows: 

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Please include your amended statements within your cover letter; we will change the online submission form on your behalf.

4. Please include a copy of Table 2 which you refer to in your text.

Additional Editor Comments:

After perusing the manuscript, I realized you did not follow some of the manuscript formatting structure as required by PLOS ONE. The following were identified as issues as regard submission to the Journal.

- No line numbering is seen in the manuscript despite clearly stated in the authors manuscript submission guidelines.

- The out-of-text or list of references at the end of the manuscript were not handled according the requirement of PLOS ONE, what was done appears to be a different referencing formatting style,

- There are also few grammatical errors to be corrected.

- Avoid the use of ‘we’ in the abstract and the paper. Instead use rather “the paper or study ….”

- The tables and figures were also not handled according to the format. Within the text the positions of tables and figures are supposed to be indicated as “Table 1” and “Fig. 1” and not by inserting the specific tables and figures there. Rather the tables and figures as well as well their respective captions

expected to be sent to the end of the manuscript separately.

[Note: HTML markup is below. Please do not edit.]

Reviewers' comments:

[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.

PONE-D-22-07125R1Formulation of substrates with agricultural and forestry wastes for Camellia oleifera Abel seedling cultivationPLOS ONE

Dear Dr. %Jinping Zhang%,

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.

==============================

ACADEMIC EDITOR: Review comments have been received from reviewers on your manuscript. You are therefore request to answer all queries raised and revise your manuscript for further consideration for publication in PLOS ONE.

==============================

Please submit your revised manuscript by Jun 20 2022 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. You should upload this as a separate file labeled 'Revised Manuscript with Track Changes'.
• An unmarked version of your revised paper without tracked changes. You should upload this as a separate file labeled 'Manuscript'.

If you would like to make changes to your financial disclosure, please include your updated statement in your cover letter. Guidelines for resubmitting your figure files are available below the reviewer comments at the end of this letter.

If applicable, we recommend that you deposit your laboratory protocols in protocols.io to enhance the reproducibility of your results. Protocols.io assigns your protocol its own identifier (DOI) so that it can be cited independently in the future. For instructions see: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/submission-guidelines#loc-laboratory-protocols. Additionally, PLOS ONE offers an option for publishing peer-reviewed Lab Protocol articles, which describe protocols hosted on protocols.io. Read more information on sharing protocols at https://plos.org/protocols?utm_medium=editorial-email&utm_source=authorletters&utm_campaign=protocols.

We look forward to receiving your revised manuscript.

Kind regards,

Felix Yao Huemabu Kutsanedzie, Ph.D

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

Journal Requirements:

Please review your reference list to ensure that it is complete and correct. If you have cited papers that have been retracted, please include the rationale for doing so in the manuscript text, or remove these references and replace them with relevant current references. Any changes to the reference list should be mentioned in the rebuttal letter that accompanies your revised manuscript. If you need to cite a retracted article, indicate the article’s retracted status in the References list and also include a citation and full reference for the retraction notice.

Additional Editor Comments (if provided):

Review comments have been received from reviewers on your manuscript. You are therefore request to answer all queries raised and revise your manuscript for further consideration for publication in PLOS ONE.

[Note: HTML markup is below. Please do not edit.]

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

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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

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3. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously?

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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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

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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

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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: Since all the suggested corrections were incorporated in the manuscript, editor should accept this manuscript in its form

Reviewer #2: 1. The authors satisfactorily addressed the review suggestions proposed in the original submission.

2. Technically, the manuscript is sound and the data provided fully supports the conclusions made. The authors have made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available.

3. Statistical analysis appropriately carried out.

4. The manuscript is presented in standard English. Generally, the manuscript has just a few mechanical inaccuracies. E.g.,

a. Line 20 => should read "... growth based upon..."

b. Line 21 => should read "... volume measurement."

c. Line 25 => should read " reached instead of reach"

d. Line 34 => should read "... after being treated with..."

e. Line 105 => space out "Shell & +"

f. Line 106 => space out "Chip & +"

g. Line 114 - 128 => Justify the paragraphs

5. The references are neither ordered alphabetically nor listed as they appeared in the manuscript yet they have been numbered. The journal format is to be followed appropriately.

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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: Yes: Moses Kwaku Golly

[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.

Attachments

Attachment

Submitted filename: PONE-D-22-07125_R1.pdf

Formulation of substrates with agricultural and forestry wastes for Camellia oleifera Abel seedling cultivation

PONE-D-22-07125R2

Dear Dr. %Jinping Zhang%,

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,

Felix Yao Huemabu Kutsanedzie, Ph.D

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

Additional Editor Comments (optional):

Based on your revision of the manuscript in accordance with the suggestions and queries raised by the reviewers of your manuscript, I am glad to inform you at this point of it acceptance for publication consideration in PLOS ONE.

Reviewers' comments: