PONE-D-22-19003Impact of sequential herbicides application on crop productivity, weed and nutrient dynamics in soybean under conservation agriculture in Vertisols of Central IndiaPLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Meena,

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Mohan Lal Dotaniya, Ph.D.

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

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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: Yes

Reviewer #2: Partly

Reviewer #3: Yes

Reviewer #4: Yes

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

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

Reviewer #3: Yes

Reviewer #4: Yes

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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

Reviewer #3: Yes

Reviewer #4: Yes

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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

Reviewer #3: Yes

Reviewer #4: Yes

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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: Comments for Authors

• Abstract written very well however some minor correction need to be incorporated like how much per-chant age increase in crop productivity under the best system.

• Introduction: Introduction is very well written indicating about background and hypothesis of study about weed management under conservation agriculture. However, it can be condensed as it is very largely elaborated.

• Materials and methods: This section described methods of all parameters and can be included some spelling mistakes with some minor correction and modifications.

• Whether the crop variety (JS-335, soybean) used same in all years? and author performed the field study under rainfed ecosystem particularly under conservation agriculture, whether the used crop variety was screen out for the conservation agriculture?

• Soybean crop is very susceptible to insect and pest attack, what type plant protection measures were used to check the pest problem.

• Nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium can be written as N, P and K as it is well understood, and no need to write again and again.

• Recommended rate of fertilizer (30 kg N+ 60 kg P2O5 +40 kg K2O ha-1) has been drilled uniformly at the time of sowing with ‘happy seeder’ as basal application, whether, it was drilled or broadcast or sprayed, check it again ?.

• Results: Tables and figures were explained very well in result section, some minor modification is needed to be corrected.

• “Please check the Latin names of the weeds?.

• Discussion: I appreciate the discussion part, the way author discussed the results with other findings is quite good. Only I have a small query that author about the 30% residue level in all the plots irrespective of herbicidal treatments, whether it was ‘anchored’ residue or residue ‘incorporation’, please mentioned it clearly.

• Conclusion is written well although there is scope to improve it in briefly as per salient achievement of the study.

• We concluded….. replace with it can be concluded.

• References: All the cited references in text are in reference list and also as per the journal’s format, but please check it carefully again.

• English grammar and punctuation is very good throughout the manuscript and the study accompanying results have merit but minor revisions are needed to make this manuscript worthy of publication.

Reviewer #2: Authors have attempted a good piece of work for continuous three years to manage the weeds in soybean under CA.

However, the manuscript nee a major revision,

The conclusion part needs to be rewritten given the emphasis on the findings.

In the figures, y-axis (yield parameters) values need to be checked and changed accordingly.

The rest of the comments have been appended to the body of the text.

Thanks

Regards

Reviewer #3: Dear Editor,

Researchers have conducted study on to evaluate the expediency of different herbicides and their sequential applications under CA. The manuscript is well written, explained and discussed well, however, I am having few queries and should be incorporated it in manuscript before final decision.

1. The study was conducted for 3 years and data related to weed density, weed dry matter and grain yield was provided as a mean or average of three years, isn't it? You have rightly mentioned in the introduction section that the effect of CA is visible in longer run, here, I want to see the year wise data of weed density, weed dry matter, species wise difference and grain yield for year wise. I believe it will improve the quality of manuscript and easy to understandable for international readers. Kindly incorporate it?

2. Methodology of agronomic efficiency and PUE is missing in respective section, incorporate it?

3. Control plot- you mean herbicide was not applied in control treatment or nutrients were not applied, elaborate it?

Reviewer #4: There are few corrections/suggestions as given below:

• Scientific names of few weed spp. need to be rechecked.

• There are few typological errors

• Few new and relevant references can be added, if possible

• There are few errors occurred during conversion to PDF.

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Reviewer #1: Yes: Dr ASHA RAM

Reviewer #2: No

Reviewer #3: Yes: Dr. B. Lal, Senior Scientist, ICAR-Indian Institute of Pulses Research, Regional Research centre, Bikaner

Reviewer #4: No

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Attachments

Attachment

Submitted filename: Comments.docx

Attachment

Submitted filename: PONE-D-22-19003_reviewer reviewed.pdf

Attachment

Submitted filename: Review comments Manuscript.docx

PONE-D-22-19003R1Impact of sequential herbicides application on crop productivity, weed and nutrient dynamics in soybean under conservation agriculture in Vertisols of Central IndiaPLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Meena,

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.

Please submit your revised manuscript by Nov 26 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,

Mohan Lal Dotaniya, Ph.D.

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

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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.

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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: (No Response)

Reviewer #3: 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

Reviewer #3: Yes

**********

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

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

Reviewer #3: 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

Reviewer #3: 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

Reviewer #3: 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: Manuscript has been significantly improved by the authors and it looks in good shape to accept for publication. The issue addressed in manuscript is very much pertaining to soybean cultivation in vertisol of Central India and similar agro-ecosystem. In recent past, many of the weed species has shown tolerant to ruling herbicides. Thus, information generated with this study will be useful to soybean growers and similar group crops (greengram and blackgram). However, in my previous review I have suggested to modify for figures Y axix, but I did not see it in present attached documents. This might be due to non-submission or not attached. Abbreviations and terminologies should be used appropriately throughout the manuscript. Spelling of scientific name of the weeds need to be re-checked. The weed density values need to be rounded off to nearest values, no need to present two digits after decimal. Weed index is yield dependent parameters so these may be presented beside yield. The suggested points may be looked critically. Rest of the comments are appended in the body itself for considerations. In conclusions, supported with data might have further improved the standard of the manuscript.Thanks for identifying me as one of the reviewers for the manuscript and giving sufficient time to review.

Reviewer #3: Authors have addressed all the queries in the manuscript and thoroughly improved. The manuscript can be accepted for publication.

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Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: No

Reviewer #3: Yes: B. Lal

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[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.

Impact of sequential herbicides application on crop productivity, weed and nutrient dynamics in soybean under conservation agriculture in Vertisols of Central India

PONE-D-22-19003R2

Dear Dr. Meena,

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.

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Kind regards,

Mohan Lal Dotaniya, Ph.D.

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

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