Effects of irrigation water regime, soil clay content and their combination on growth, yield, and water use efficiency of rice grown in South China

Abstract

To investigate the effect of irrigation regime, soil clay content and their combination on growth, yield, and water productivity of rice, a shelter experiment was conduct using Randomized Complete Block Design (RCBD) with a factorial arrangement of treatments with four replications. Irrigation regime was the main treatment investigated, set in three levels as R (30 mm-100%) (100% of saturation and 30 mm flooded), R (30 mm-90%) (90% of saturation and 30 mm flooded) and R (30 mm-70%) (70% saturation and 30 mm flooded), respectively. The sub-treatment was soil type, set in three levels as 40%, 50% and 60% clay content, respectively. Results showed that irrigation regime and soil clay content had significant effects on growth, yield and water productivity of rice. However, their combination showed no significant impact on panicles number, root biomass, harvest index and irrigation water productivity. Higher soil clay content results in increase in growth, yield, and water productivity of rice. The total water consumption during R (30 mm-100%) was higher than that during R (30 mm-90%) and R (30 mm-70%) because the latter two saturation levels led to the cracking of soil and decrease of total number of irrigations. Cracks were consistently getting more serious with the reduction in soil water content and the increase in soil clay content. Cracks in soil will preferentially become the major routes of water losses, thus water percolation during R (30 mm-70%) was higher than that during R (30 mm-90%) and R (30 mm-100%) after each irrigation event. The total water use under R (30 mm-70%) exceeded the water consumption under R (30 mm-90%) due to the great amount of soil cracking as well as the excessive volume of standing water depth. Considering water consumption and grain yield, the following conclusion can be reached: (i) The reduction in water consumption was greater than the reduction in grain yield in the case of drying soil 10% below saturation before reflooding. (ii) The reduction in water consumption was less than the reduction in grain yield in the case of drying soil 30% below saturation before reflooding; (iii) The increase in water use was greater than the increase in grain yield in the case of maintaining soil moisture at 100% of saturation before reflooding. Therefore, the water use efficiency was recorded in the order of R (30 mm-90%) >R (30 mm-100%) >R (30 mm-70%).

Effect of Irrigation Regimes and Soil Texture on the Potassium Utilization Efficiency of Rice

“…Our result confirms the result of previous studies, i.e., a decrease in the soil water moisture content increases the volume of the cracks [48,49]. Soil cracking intensity is correlated with irrigation regime and soil clay content [46,47,50].…”

Effect of Irrigation Systems on Rice Productivity

“…the root zone for better propagation and root growth. These results were also in analogy with the findings of Hamoud et al (2018) by studying the effects of irrigation water regimes, soil clay content, and their interaction on the rice's growth, yield, and water use efficiency. The interaction of cultivar TH, DID (18 cm), and the SDIS provided the best PVI value (71.15 cm).…”

“…Six samples, taken randomly from the field soil with three tillage depths, determined the properties by following past research methods (Irmak et al, 2014;Hamoud et al, 2018). Soil samples collected through the pipette method measured soil moisture, bulk density, and the total porosity of the soil during the growing season after one month, two months, and at the growing season end (GSE).…”

“…Drip irrigation gives 50% water, with a 29% increase in rice yield compared with conventional dry land cultivation (Suriyan et al, 2010). The drip irrigation system definition is the addition of water through point and line sources above and beneath the soil surface at a little operative compression and a faint emptying rate, resulting in part-time moistening of the soil surface (Hanson and May, 2007;Hamoud et al, 2018). Therefore, it is crucial to develop agronomic practices that potentially minimize water use without reducing planting distance (Sangsoo et al, 2021).…”

Rice Cultivation under Drip Irrigation with Plastic Film Mulch in the Kanto Area of Japan

“…From the viewpoint of yield components, the smaller numbers of tillers in DI for the three cultivars were one of the main reasons for the lower yield in DI compared to that in CF. It was reported that the tiller numbers under lower soil moisture conditions were lower than those in the flood irrigation system [24] and those under a higher soil moisture condition [25]. Dou et al [26] also showed that the panicle numbers in aerobic and saturated soil conditions were smaller than those in the flood irrigation system.…”