Limited irrigation influence on rotation yield, water use, and wheat traits

Abstract

Selecting more water‐efficient wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) varieties that are suited to no seasonal irrigation is an important way to improve water use efficiency (WUE) in the North China Plain (NCP). The goal of this study was to assess the yield and WUE of wheat, maize (Zea mays L.), and rotation, and to determine the traits of high‐WUE wheat varieties and clarify the mechanism for increasing WUE. Experiments were conducted during the 2012–2016 seasons using 10 common winter wheat varieties under no seasonal irrigation (W0) or two irrigation events (W2, irrigation at jointing and anthesis). No seasonal irrigation treatment decreased wheat and rotation yield, and improved maize yield and WUE of maize and rotation. No seasonal irrigation treatment decreased 150‐mm irrigation amount, reduced soil water content in 0–2‐m soil depth at wheat maturity and 1–2‐m depth after maize harvest, and extended the maize grain filling stage. Compared with the wheat genotype with the lowest WUE (‘Nongda 211’), under W0 condition, the genotype with the highest WUE, ‘Nongda 5133,’ could improve rotation yield and WUE by 10.7 and 10.9%, respectively. The WUE of wheat had a strong positive association with yield across the genotypes. High‐WUE varieties had a higher leaf area index at anthesis and higher late‐season photosynthesis rate and/or delayed canopy senescence under W0. This study indicated that W0 in wheat growing season could improve maize yield, narrow the rotation yield gap with W2 treatment, and improve wheat and rotation WUE by combining with high‐WUE wheat varieties.

Improving wheat yield and water use efficiency by optimizing irrigations in northern China

“…Rainfall could effectively supplement the demands for crop water demands and supply the soil water stock, particularly in the winter wheat season. Even though, the water that the winter wheat season required was still up to 200-300 mm (Fang et al, 2010;Sun et al, 2010), and irrigation could be contributed to crop yield production, e.g., the yield of S086 for W0 vs. W1 vs. W2 was 6536 vs. 8182 vs. 8286 kg ha -1 , in 2019-2020 (Table 5), which indicated that irrigation could increase crop yields by as high as 27-164%, and these results have been proved by previous studies (He et al, 2017;Zhang et al, 2020). The selection of drought-resistant varieties was also bene cial for irrigation water saving with high crop yield.…”

“…However, SWC primarily differed in the 0-120 cm soil layer in these different irrigation treatments (Fig. 2) Zhang et al, 2020). In addition, the extraction of deeper soil water was increased when the irrigation water was reduced (i.e., W0 and W1) (Xu et al, 2016).…”

“…Northern China is a typical semi-arid area with an average annual precipitation at 556 mm but only compromised 27-32% (150-180 mm) during the winter wheat growing season (Zhang et al, 2020). Consequently, the precipitation cannot meet the requirements, and a lack of adequate water then caused up to 200-300 mm of a shortage of water during the whole winter wheat growing season (Fang et al, 2010;Sun et al, 2019).…”

Improving Wheat Yield and Water-Use Efficiency by Optimizing Irrigations in Northern China

“…Intensified winter wheat planting is the primary cropping system in northern China, which produces >67% of the wheat in China [1]. Northern China is a typical semi-arid area with an average annual precipitation of 556 mm, but only 27-32% (150-180 mm) of this falls during the winter wheat growing season [2]. Consequently, precipitation cannot meet the requirements, and a lack of adequate water thus causes up to a 200-300 mm shortage of water during the whole winter wheat growing season [3,4].…”

Statistical analysis and modelling of crop yield and nitrogen use efficiency in China

“…Ningxia had favorable environmental conditions: high temperature in crop growing season, large day and night temperature difference, sufficient solar radiation with sufficient irrigation and good management practices made large improvements of yield possible (Yang, 2017). For Hebei, the cultivation of drought-tolerant varieties and crops with low water consumption alleviated the restriction of drought on yield (Zhang et al, 2020). The yield increased in Shaanxi province due to modern dry-land cultivars (Sun et al, 2014) and increasing solar radiation (Chen et al, 2017).…”