Ground cover rice production systems increase soil carbon and nitrogen stocks at regional scale

Liu, M.; Dannenmann, M.; Lin, S.; Saiz, G.; Yan, G.; Yao, Z.; Pelster, D. E.; Tao, H.; Sippel, S.; Tao, Y.; Zhang, Y.; Zheng, X.; Zuo, Q.; Butterbach-Bahl, K.

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-12-4831-2015

Articles | Volume 12, issue 15

https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-12-4831-2015

© Author(s) 2015. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-12-4831-2015

© Author(s) 2015. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.

Articles | Volume 12, issue 15

Research article

|

14 Aug 2015

Research article |

| 14 Aug 2015

Ground cover rice production systems increase soil carbon and nitrogen stocks at regional scale

M. Liu, M. Dannenmann, S. Lin, G. Saiz, G. Yan, Z. Yao, D. E. Pelster, H. Tao, S. Sippel, Y. Tao, Y. Zhang, X. Zheng, Q. Zuo, and K. Butterbach-Bahl

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Final revised paper (published on 14 Aug 2015)
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Preprint (discussion started on 27 Feb 2015)
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Interactive discussion

Status: closed

AC: Author comment | RC: Referee comment | SC: Short comment | EC: Editor comment

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- Supplement

RC C399: 'Referee Comment', Anonymous Referee #3, 02 Mar 2015
- AC C2366: 'Response to reviewer 399', S. Lin, 22 May 2015
RC C464: 'Review comment on “Ground cover rice production system facilitates soil carbon and nitrogen stocks at regional scale" by Liu et al.', Anonymous Referee #4, 03 Mar 2015
- AC C2367: 'Response to reviewers 464', S. Lin, 22 May 2015
RC C486: 'General comments', Anonymous Referee #1, 04 Mar 2015
- AC C2368: 'Response to reviewers 486', S. Lin, 22 May 2015
RC C495: 'Referee comments', Anonymous Referee #5, 04 Mar 2015
- AC C2369: 'Response to reviewers 464', S. Lin, 22 May 2015
- AC C2370: 'Response to reviewers_495', S. Lin, 22 May 2015

Peer-review completion

AR: Author's response | RR: Referee report | ED: Editor decision

AR by S. Lin on behalf of the Authors (08 Jun 2015)

ED: Referee Nomination & Report Request started (19 Jun 2015) by Yakov Kuzyakov

RR by Anonymous Referee #1 (22 Jun 2015)

RR by Anonymous Referee #5 (25 Jun 2015)

Suggestions for revision or reasons for rejection

Dear Editor and Authors,

This manuscript has been improved after the revision. I find the Methods and Results quite reasonable as it is in this revised version. The data is of value to publish. However, the Introduction needs more state-of-the-art, rather than just a general introduction. Discussion part still reads a bit over-stated, and lack of real crispy in-depth interpretation. It still needs revision to meet the standard of this journal.

Basically, the Discussion part is structured into two sections: SOC and SON. Yet, a large part of each of the two sections is actually literature review, not really in the sense of interpretation or peer reports comparison. If the literature could have been discussed and argued much earlier in the Introduction, it would spare a great amount of writing space to build up a much more in-depth interpretation of the observed results, and comparison with peer reports in the Discussion.

In addition, if the literature cited in the Discussion is to support to reject the initial hypothesis that more C and N loss should be the consequence of GCRPS, then the literature might be also used in the Introduction to discuss and argue the potential knowledge gaps between those two conflicting consequences (increase or decrease SOC stock). The argument and structure of this manuscript then might be much stronger.

At last, I am still not convinced about the sustainability of using plastic sheets as cover materials. It perhaps would also help to rectify the net benefits of this technique, if the authors could discuss and show more the limitation of such plastic sheets, and their potential impacts to the environment. Otherwise, over-stating the positive benefits of the plastic sheets in increasing SOC stock and mitigating climate change is very likely to mislead local policy decision to prompt large-scale use of the plastic sheets.

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RR by Anonymous Referee #6 (27 Jun 2015)

ED: Publish subject to minor revisions (Editor review) (05 Jul 2015) by Yakov Kuzyakov

AR by S. Lin on behalf of the Authors (16 Jul 2015)

ED: Publish as is (25 Jul 2015) by Yakov Kuzyakov

AR by S. Lin on behalf of the Authors (29 Jul 2015)

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Short summary

We demonstrate for the first time that a ground cover rice production system (GCRPS) significantly increased soil organic C and total N stocks at spatially representative paired sites under varying edaphic conditions. Our results suggest that GCRPS is a stable and sustainable technique that maintains key soil functions, while increasing rice yield and expanding the cultivation into regions where it has been hampered by low seasonal temperatures and/or a lack of irrigation water.