All reviews of published articles are made public. This includes manuscript files, peer review comments, author rebuttals and revised materials. Note: This was optional for articles submitted before 13 February 2023.
Peer reviewers are encouraged (but not required) to provide their names to the authors when submitting their peer review. If they agree to provide their name, then their personal profile page will reflect a public acknowledgment that they performed a review (even if the article is rejected). If the article is accepted, then reviewers who provided their name will be associated with the article itself.
I confirm that all issues raised by the reviewers have been addressed satisfactorily and the manuscript can be accepted for publication.
Based on reviews from three expert reviewers with specific research experience on Leucaena, the manuscript is assessed as requiring 'Major Revision'. Even though all three reviewers, individually, recommend 'Minor Revision', a major revision is required when the comments of all three reviewers are considered together.
All three reviewers raise questions about the methodology of the work. Reviewer 3 has queries on the experimental design while Reviewers 1 and 2 raise questions about the pruning and/or pollarding frequency and the classification of green, fresh biomass and woody biomass. After addressing these queries on the Methodology, the authors are advised to review and revise (if necessary) the presentation of results and their interpretation in the discussion.
All three reviewers have identified and recommended key references that are missing in this version of the manuscript. The authors are advised to consider including some or all of these recommended references. However, decisions regarding the inclusion of references suggested by reviewers is at the discretion of the authors depending on their opinion on the relevance of these references.
The authors are advised to address ALL comments of the reviewers and provide an itemized point-by-point response in a separate document.
Overall, it is a good piece of work and the manuscript is written well in most parts but there are a few points that need to be clarified.
1. First of all, KX4 is a giant leucaena, it is not a common leucaena. The authors may write a few lines explaining its difference from common leucaena. Please find the differences between giant and common leucaena explained in Bageel et al. (2020) (see attached).
2. Authors should also mention how KX4 was developed. Again, it is stated in Table 2 of Bageel et al. (2020).
3. Pruning or pollarding was done four times in 16 months. How many sprouts and shoots grew after each pruning?
4. How was biomass quantified? Generally, shoots or branches that are 5 millimeters and less, can be considered as green fresh biomass, while more than 5 mm considered woody biomass.
5. After each pruning, herbicide Roundup was sprayed to control weeds in the plots. Were the stumps of the pruned plants protected from herbicide? Or, did they also absorb some herbicide?
6. The following references, related to this work, may be added.
Brewbaker J 2016. Breeding Leucaena: tropical multipurpose leguminous tree. Plant Breed Rev 40:43-121.
Youkhana, A. and Idol, T. (2009): Tree pruning mulch increases soil C and N in a shaded coffee agroecosystem in Hawaii. Soil Biology and Biochemistry 41(12): 2527-2534. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.soilbio.2009.09.011.
Youkhana, A. & Idol, T. (2008): First-year biomass production and soil improvement in young Leucaena and Robinia stands under different pollarding systems. Journal of Tropical Forest Science 20(3): 181-187.
Youkhana, A. and Idol, T. (2018): Chapter 22: Cut-and-carry for sustaining productivity and carbon sequestration in agroforestry system: Coffee-Leucaena example. In: Dagar J., Tewari V. (eds) Agroforestry. Springer, Singapore.
Okay
Valid
No additional comments
No comments
No Comments
No comments
No comments
**PeerJ Staff Note:** It is PeerJ policy that additional references suggested during the peer-review process should only be included if the authors are in agreement that they are relevant and useful.
Introduction is ok but I have a few suggestions to improve the document. See manuscript and separate word file
This section is weak. Please see text on the document and separate word file for details. Need to improve much before publishing.
need to se with changes of M & M
Need details in some tables see manuscript with suggestions
See what is given in manuscript.
51 Something missing
71, 74, 75, 77 Better to give authority of species with botanical name? need to match with policy of
journal
76, 234 Better to place also later, not good to start with Also. For example “A biomass….. also
resulted…..
134 to 145 How did you block? What is the block size? How many plants per block? How many plots per
block? How many plants per plot? There are two treatments, spacing (3) and time of pruning (2). Did
you have a factorial experiment or just analyze it separately? Need a clear explanation on experimental
design. Hedge rows are single or multiple lines? I cannot visualize from the explanation. As initial values
are different, did you use them as covariate? See text with red colour comments.
141 (Mohan, Clarke, and Chadee 2020) reference is not cited?
148 needs to specify several months with number as it can be 15-100?
Table 1 Heading precipitation values per year?
All text and materials provided via this peer-review history page are made available under a Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.