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I am happy to accept the article based on the authors' response.
Dear Dr. Cai,
The reviewer has some comments on the manuscript. Please revise the manuscript.
I have no further comments.
No comment
No comment
Most of the comments have been answered by the authors. I am however not satisfied with the line graph added to Fig. 2A. The line graph is for which of the 6 agricultural straws? Please elaborate or add line graphs for all the 6 AS.
Dear Dr. Cai,
Your manuscript was evaluated by two independent reviewers. Both reviewers have suggested changes to improve the manuscript. Please revise it based on these comments.
Sincerely,
Gunjan Arora, PhD
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Song et al report a systematic and detailed study of degradation/composting of agricultural residues in term of lignocellulose composition, bacterial community diversity and morphological changers as a function of time. Study is very interesting and useful in understanding the bioprocessing of agricultural straws and usage of composting products in cultivating other edible/agricultural products including mushrooms.
The study is clear and unambiguous. Manuscript is clearly written.
Rigorous investigation performed to a high technical & ethical standard.
Methods described with sufficient detail and information to replicate.
All underlying data have been provided
Data is robust, statistically sound, and controlled
Conclusions can be improved by adding more detail about the application of the current study.
In the introduction section, I suggest adding more detail about the time required for composting preparation and how the current study could help a biotechnology industry.
Specific points:
1. It is very unclear how the temperature variation affects microbial community composition. Authors mentioned the microbial composition and temperature as a separate entity. A figure showing the “temperature vs biological community enrichment can be very helpful in understanding the importance of temperature in enriching a biological community diversity.
2. Figure 2. It is hard to follow so many parameters. Define “CS, WS, RS, CC, C and B” in the figure legend. Also define Y-axes N and C/N ration in the figure legend.
3. Table 1. Describe CS, WS, RS, CC, C and B.
4. Conclusions can be improved by adding more detail about the application of the current study.
A lot of grammar, spelling, and punctuation usage can be improved for example in line 35, 37, and 47-49. I would suggest getting the manuscript edited by a native English speaker.
Line 142: I was unable to find the reference cited here: Cao et al. 2019. Please make sure all the cited references are included in the References section.
Fig. 3 and Table 1: The usage of small alphabets statistical differences is hard to understand. Please use conventional asterisks or provide p values for each significantly different pair.
In the interest of readers from diverse background, I suggest expanding some of the abbreviations like C, N, P, K, RS, WS, CS etc. Use them in their full forms throughout the manuscript. It would also prevent mistake like “RC” instead of “RS” in line 289.
Lines 125-126: There seems to be a mistake in defining biological efficiency. It cannot be the ratio of T3 to TY. It should be the ratio of fresh mushroom weight to the weight of dry substrate.
Line 125: Elaborate if T3 is the weight of 1-3 flushes combined or is it average of all the three flushes. It may be helpful to include values for each of the three flushes in Table 1.
Line 266: Please elaborate what does this sentence signify “The N concentration in mature compost seems related to the mushroom yield”.
The manuscript by Song et al. describes the properties and characteristics of 6 different agricultural straws used for the production of mushroom. The authors compared different AS for their physico-chemical properties and analyzed changes throughout the fermentation process. They also sequenced and compared the microflora among these different AS. Based on their data, they recommend the AS from WS, RS, and CS to be most suited for mushroom production.
The results are exciting, however I have some minor queries.
Fig. 2A: It would be interesting to see a line graph of changes in C/N ratio among different stages of fermentation.
Line 33: The sentence is incomplete without mentioning how much AS are produced worldwide annually.
Line 44: please change “American” to “America”.
Table 1 and S3: Define “EB”. Is it same as biological efficiency (BE)?
Line 23: Please change “Phage” to “Phase”.
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