Deep ploughing in the summer fallow season and optimizing nitrogen rate can increase yield, water, and nitrogen efficiencies of rain-fed winter wheat in the Loess Plateau region of China

PeerJ

article

Rongrong Zhang¹  Peiru Wang¹  Wenxiang Wang¹  Aixia Ren¹  Hafeez Noor¹  Rong Zhong¹  Zhiqiang Gao¹  Min Sun¹ 

[1] Department of Agronomy, Shanxi Agriculture University;Collaborative Innovation Center for High-Quality and Efficient Production of Characteristic Crops on the Loess Plateau Jointly Built by Provinces and Ministries;Shanxi Agricultural University, State Key Laboratory of Sustainable Dryland Agriculture

关键词: Tillage methods;    Soil water consumption;    Plant nitrogen translocation;    Grain yield;    Water use efficiency;    Nitrogen use efficiency;   

DOI  :  10.7717/peerj.14153

学科分类：社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

来源: Inra

【 摘 要 】

Background About 60% of the annual precipitation in the Loess Plateau occurs during the summer fallow season, and does not align with the wheat growing season. In addition, the nitrogen use efficiency is low in this area because nutrient availability is affected by drought. As a result, rainwater storage during the summer fallow season is very important to increasing nitrogen use efficiency, and to the stable production of dryland wheat in the Loess Plateau. Methods A 3-year field experiment in the eastern part of the Loess Plateau was conducted with two tillage methods (no tillage (NT) and deep ploughing (DP)) and five N rates (0, 120, 150, 180, and 210 kg N ha−1) to study the effect of tillage on soil water utilization, plant nitrogen utilization, and wheat yield. Result Compared to NT, DP showed a larger increase in soil water storage (SWSf) and precipitation storage efficiency (PSEf) during the two dry summer fallow seasons than in the normal summer fallow season. DP substantially increased the pre-anthesis soil water consumption (SWCpre) and N translocation. The average yield under DP was 12.46% and 14.92–18.29% higher than under NT in the normal and dry seasons, respectively. A 1 mm increase in SWCpre could increase grain yield by 25.28 kg ha−1, water use efficiency (WUE) by 0.069 kg ha−1 mm−1, and nitrogen utilization efficiency (NUtE) by 0.029 kg kg−1. DP could reduce the N rate by 11.49–53.34% in the normal seasons and 40.97–65.07% in the dry seasons compared to the same highest point of yield, WUE, and NUtE under NT. Conclusion Deep ploughing in the summer fallow season, paired with optimized N application, could help increase wheat yield and nitrogen efficiency in dryland.

【 授权许可】

CC BY