Border effects enhance lodging resistance of spring wheat in narrowing-row-space enlarged-lateral-space drip irrigation patterns

Effects of Different Drip Irrigation Patterns on Grain Yield and Population Structure of Different Water- and Fertilizer-Demanding Wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) Varieties

“…Therefore, studying the changes in biomass, plant height, PAR interception, and CAP between rows under different drip irrigation patterns is of great significance for optimizing the wheat population structure under drip irrigation system and achieving high yield. In this study, it was found that after TR6 pattern was processed to narrow wheat row spacing from 15 cm to 10 cm under the condition of the same drip tube lateral spacing (TR6L) and under the condition of shortening drip tube lateral spacing by 10 cm (TR6S), at jointing, flowering, and maturity stages the tillers number, plant height, biomass, PAR interception, and CAP in R3 of both XC22 and XC44 were significantly higher than that of TR6R3, and the tillers number, plant height, biomass, PAR interception, and CAP in R3 of TR6L showed no significant difference from TR6S or were slightly higher than TR6S, which indicated that when TR6 pattern was processed to narrow wheat row spacing and add 35 cm and 25 cm inter-block, it could significantly improve the population structure of XC22 and XC44 and promote the growth of R3 plants, and the improvement effect of inter-block in 35 cm was similar to that in 25 cm, which was consistent with previous research suggesting that wide-narrow planting pattern can promote the growth of border row plants [12,29]. At the three-leaf stage, the number of stems under TR6S of both XC22 and XC44 were significantly lower than that of TR4, TR6, and TR6L, which may be related to the insufficient planting density caused by the increase of wheat rows per unit area (sowing amount remained unchanged); therefore, we believed that TR6S pattern had significant yield and ecological potential after increasing sowing density.…”

“…When applying drip irrigation systems to wheat production, the required horizontal distance of water supply for one drip tube is related to the number of wheat rows and wheat row spacing [9,12]. Appropriately narrowing wheat row spacing could reduce the water supply distance of drip tube, shorten irrigation cycle, and effectively reduce the difference in water and fertilizer between wheat rows [11,29]. In addition, some studies suggest that planting wheat in wide-narrow rows could improve the growth space of plant, increase ventilation and light transmission of plant populations, and fully utilize the marginal advantage, which was beneficial for improving yield [23,55,56].…”

“…Cultivation management measures directly affect the population structure and canopy environment of crops [27,28]. The arrangement of wheat row spacing is an important cultivation measure that can determine the uniformity of wheat population and directly affect the yield potential of individual plants [29,30]. Previous studies have shown that under narrow row spacing planting conditions, the biomass, leaf area index (LAI), and canopy apparent photosynthesis rate (CAP) were significantly higher than that under wide row spacing conditions, and the LAI and CAP decreased with the increase of row spacing, which was due to the fact that the population of wheat achieved canopy closure earlier during the jointing and booting stages under narrow row spacing conditions, significantly increasing the PAR interception of the canopy and thus forming higher biomass [31][32][33].…”