Suitability of Mulch and Ridge-furrow Techniques for Maize across the Precipitation Gradient on the Chinese Loess Plateau

Abstract

Mulch and ridge-furrow are effective techniques to improve water harvest, reduce evaporation and increase crop productivity in dry rainfed areas. We collected grain yield data of maize (Zea mays L.) across the precipitation gradient on the Loess Plateau under three treatments: (1) CK, flat plot without mulch; (2) HM, half-mulch flat plot, i.e. alternating mulched row and bare row without ridge-furrow; and (3) DRM, double ridges and the furrow fully mulched with plastic film. Maize grain yields were highest in the DRM treatment and lowest in the CK treatment. Mulch or ridge-furrow with mulch have increased maize grain yield significantly. The highest increase was found in low growing season precipitation regimes. Grain yields of the three treatments trended to converge in high growing season precipitation regimes. Regressions between grain yields and growing season precipitation for the three treatments showed that maize yields increased linearly with precipitation for CK; statistically significant quadratic models were found for HM and DRM treatments. The economic net incomes were calculated based on yields and inputs of capital and labor for the three treatments. Considering both water resource and economic outcome, we recommend that a precipitation range of 196-532 mm is most suitable for mulch and ridge-furrow techniques for maize on the Loess Plateau. Spatially, CK and HM treatment were most suitable for small parts of the southeast part of the plateau and DRM was suitable for most of (87%) the plateau.

Can drip irrigation under mulch be replaced with shallow‐buried drip irrigation in spring maize production systems in semiarid areas of northern China?

“…2). This was consistent with previous research showing that mulching technology is an effective measure for improving crop yields in semi‐arid areas 17–19 . All the above results indicate that drip irrigation under mulch resulted in considerable improvements in biomass yield, and hence higher grain yield, compared with the results under shallow‐buried irrigation.…”

Plastic Film Mulching Increases Soil Respiration in Ridge-furrow Maize Management

“…Various mulching materials are applied to the soil surface, including plastic film, gravel and sand, rock fragments, crop straw, concrete, volcanic ash, paper pellets, and livestock manures (Li and Gong 2002;Li 2003;Jacinthe and Lal 2004;Jia et al 2006;Gan et al 2013). This can directly impact soil respiration and alter the carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) emission pattern (Ye and Liu 2012;Tanveer et al 2013). Different mulching materials, methods, and times have different effects on soil respiration (Larsson, Stenberg, and Torstensson 1997;Wardle et al 1999;Duiker and Lal 2000;Maier and Kress 2000;Hui et al 2001;Petrone, Waddington, and Price 2001;Sulzman et al 2005).…”

“…The conventional plastic film mulch technique is ''partial-mulch'' or ''half-mulch,'' that is, alternating plastic film mulched ridge and bare furrow (Liu et al 2010;Kasirajan and Ngouajio 2012;Nishimura et al 2012). A new mulching pattern is ridge-furrow fully mulched with plastic film (RFFM) and this has gained huge popularity in China since 2007 Ye and Liu 2012;Liu et al 2014). The RFFM management markedly increased crop production compared with conventional partial-mulching management and the area rapidly expanded to seven million hectares by 2012 in western China (Liu et al 2009;Zhou et al 2009;Fan and Xie 2012).…”

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

“…Agricultural management measurements, such as tillage, straw mulching and incorporation, fertilization, and organic amendments, have played a great role in promoting soil fertility (Su et al 2006;Diacono and Montemurro 2010;Cong et al 2012;Laird and Chang 2013;Zhang et al 2013;Shang et al 2014;Vega-ávila et al 2018) and soil productivity (Unger 1978;Blanco-Canqui and Lal 2009;Pan et al 2009;Liu et al 2014;Akhtar et al 2018;Sheidai Karkaj et al 2019). 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).…”