Journal
AGRICULTURAL WATER MANAGEMENT
Volume 75, Issue 1, Pages 71-83Publisher
ELSEVIER
DOI: 10.1016/j.agwat.2004.12.014
Keywords
spring wheat; plastic mulch; evapotranspiration; yield; water use efficiency
Categories
Ask authors/readers for more resources
The field experiments were conducted to study the evapotranspiration (ET), evaporation (E), growth, yield and water use efficiency (WUE) of plastic-mulched spring wheat with hole planting in 1990 and 1991 under full and deficit irrigation at Zhangye Station of Water-saving Agriculture, Gansu Academy of Agricultural Science in northwest China. The experiment was designed to maintain minimum soil water content (MSWC) to different levels: 85%, 70%, 60%, 50%, 40% of field capacity in rooting depth and treatment to be nonirrigation. The treatments were laid out in a randomized complete block with four replications, and a non-mulched replication as control. The study indicated plastic mulched had higher ET than non-mulched due to increase of LAI. Seasonal ET was 269 mm for the plastic-mulch treatments with MSWC 40% and 765 rum with MSWC 85%, increased 19.8% and 2% than non-mulched, respectively. The ET rates of mulch treatments were lower before tillering, and higher after tillering. Plastic mulching could decreased evaporation from soil by 55% in comparison with non-mulched for the treatment of 60% MSWC. The yield was the highest with treatment of MSWC 60% in 1990 and 70% in 1991, and it was significantly higher than treatments of MSWC 40% and nonirrigation. However, there were not significant differences in yield when MSWC were between 50% and 85%. The water use efficiency (WUE) of the plastic-mulched treatment reduced with the increase in MSWC. They were 0.86 kg m(-3) for the treatment of MSWC 85% in 1990 and 0.89 kg m(-3) in 1991, significantly lower than MSWC 40-60% and nonirrigation. There were increases of 0.9-30.8% in ET and 4.0-110.3% in yield for all plastic-mulched treatment over non-mulch. The WUE with plastic mulch was 2-61% higher than non-mulch, and the difference increased with the decreasing of MSWC. The net seasonal income, benefit-cost ratio and net profit per mm of water used were bigger compared with non-mulched under less than 60% MSWC, however they became smaller from 60% up to 85%. Finally, results revealed that spring wheat mulched with plastic maintained higher WUE and net income than non-mulched under low soil water content, which makes it suitable for deficit irrigation in and circumstance. (c) 2005 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
Authors
I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.
Reviews
Recommended
No Data Available