Ridge-furrow with plastic film and straw mulch increases water availability and wheat production on the Loess Plateau

Abstract

Mulching is critical for increasing water availability and hence winter wheat production in dryland farming systems. A two-year study was conducted to assess the effects of mulches on soil water storage (SWS), temperature, water use efficiency (WUE) and yields of winter wheat on the Loess Plateau. Four treatments were examined: conventional flat planting (CK), straw mulch (FPS), transparent plastic film mulch (FPP) and ridge-furrow with plastic film-mulched ridge and straw-mulched furrow (RFPS). Compared with CK, RFPS greatly increased SWS from 0–60 cm, FPP increased SWS from 0–40 cm, and FPS slightly increased SWS from 0–60 cm; however, FPP significantly (P < 0.05) decreased SWS from 61–100 cm. RFPS and FPP increased soil temperatures in cold seasons relative to CK, especially in RFPS (2.0–2.3 °C). Meanwhile, the rate of soil temperature increase was greater in RFPS and FPP than in CK but was lower in FPS. Mean yields were significantly increased in RFPS (56.78%), FPP (44.72%) and FPS (9.57%), and WUE was significantly increased in RFPS (44.04%) and in FPP (37.50%) compared with CK (P < 0.05). We conclude that ridge-furrow planting with plastic film-mulched ridge and straw-mulched furrow has a good potential for raising winter wheat production on the Loess Plateau.

An Approach to Improve Soil Quality: a Case Study of Straw Incorporation with a Decomposer Under Full Film-Mulched Ridge-Furrow Tillage on the Semiarid Loess Plateau, China

“…Our result findings can be explained by the enhanced soil biological activity of the additive decomposer (Zhao et al 2016;Siczek et al 2018) and the optimal soil moisture and temperature condition under FM S tillage (Potthoff et al 2008;Gan et al 2013;Liu et al 2018). Moreover, our results indicated that the fast decomposition period of the buried maize straw lasted for 120 days, with a much lower residual mass rate under T1 than that under T2, which was much longer than the finding in an anaerobic field incubation test of buried wheat straw reported by Wang (2015).…”

“…Furthermore, SOC and SON responses to straw incorporation widely vary and are site-specific, largely contributing to the complex interactions between the quantity and quality of incorporated straw and native SOC under diverse management practices (Wang 2015). In our study, we found that K S , K C , and K N were significantly negatively correlated with initial SOC and SON, particularly in the presence of a straw decomposer both in the direct field incubation test and in the 3 years of field experiment; this resulted in a considerable amount of liberated straw C and N and high SOC and SON accumulation, probably because of the following reasons: First, addition of a decomposer enhanced the overall soil microbial activities in conjunction with the increased soil hydrothermal conditions under the FM tillage, resulting in rapid decomposition of the buried maize straw thus releasing additional nitrogen that gradually adjusted the straw and soil C/N ratio and favorably facilitated additional straw decomposition and straw C and N release (Li et al 2006;Jiang and Li 2015;Tang et al 2016;Liu et al 2018). Second, the addition of the decomposer might have offset some negative effects caused by the initial straw and soil chemical composition and the unfavorable soil moisture and temperature conditions during the early stages of straw decomposition through the multilateral reaction among them, synergistically enhancing the buried straw decomposition and C and N release, which was similar to the finding in the maize straw incubation reported by Qin et al (2015).…”

“…Particularly, the application of full plastic film-mulched ridge-furrow rainwater harvesting technique (FM) has not only increased soil water content due to the reduced soil evaporation (Li et al 2016) but also greatly increased crop yield attribute to the increase in soil water content and temperature (Ye and Liu 2012;Gan et al 2013;El-Sadek and Salem 2015). However, the low soil fertility (Zhang et al 2016) resulting from intensive cropping negatively impacts on soil productivity in semiarid agroecosystems (Zhang et al 2013(Zhang et al , 2015Liu et al 2018).…”

“…been widely in use on the Loess Plateau. This technique is more efficient in improving the soil hydrothermal conditions and soil fertility via the synergistic effects of film and straw double mulching, and the additional organic matter from straw C input resulting in replenished soil nutrients and increased crop yields (Wang and Xing 2016;Liu et al 2018;Yu et al 2018). However, the slow decomposition rate of incorporated straw (Surekha et al 2003;Li et al 2012;Palika et al 2013) remains to be the main challenge in the successful use of straw as a soil amendment.…”

Effects of ridge and furrow film mulching on soil environment and yield under potato continuous cropping system

“…One is the ridge mulched by the plastic film as the runoff area, and the other is the furrow, which acts in the planting area (Ren et al 2016a). The greatest advantage of RFFM is that it can effectively improve the temperature and moisture of topsoil, increase water use efficiency, soil nitrate, and organic carbon, and consequently increase crop yields of wheat (Liu et al 2018), maize (Wang et al 2018) and winter oilseed rape (Gu et al 2016) in the practice of agricultural production.Good soil environment, which is the basis for plant growth and development, can support sufficient water, fertilizer, gas, and heat for plants (Mimura…”