Assessing the effects of plant density and plastic film mulch on maize evaporation and transpiration using dual crop coefficient approach
Introduction
Changing climate and growing globe population in recent decades have resulted in higher risk of drought and a higher demand of food (Tilman et al., 2011; Misra, 2014; Wu et al., 2017). Therefore, increasing crop yield with less water is an essential issue which needs to be taken seriously for sustainable crop production, especially in rain-fed area, where precipitation is the major limiting resource for maize growth. In China, the Northeastern plain is mainly dominated by rain-fed farming systems, and is one of the most important maize production areas in the whole country, where scarce precipitation and low air temperatures in April and May often cause poor plant establishment (Deng et al., 2006; Chen et al., 2015). Thus, one of the best ways to improve maize yields and rainfall use efficiency is making full use of limited precipitation and increasing soil temperature by using effective agronomic methods.
Some previous studies have suggested that plastic film mulching and increasing plant density are two common agronomic activities that can augment rainfall use efficiency and soil temperature, thereby improving maize yield (Bu et al., 2013; Mo et al., 2017; Jia et al., 2018, Yu et al., 2018; Sun et al., 2019). Previous experiments have shown that plastic film mulch can increase the soil temperature and decrease soil evaporation (Gan et al., 2013; Yin et al., 2014). Zhu et al. (2015) reported that film mulching is an effective agricultural technique to eliminate the negative effects of water scarcity on crop growth. In the recent decades, the maize yield has continued to improve with the increase of maize plant density (Duvick, 2005). Some researchers have been reporting that high plant density can augment Leaf Area Index (LAI), establish an optimum canopy structure and increase number of maize ears per unit area (Li et al., 2013; Jia et al., 2018). Thus, it improves maize yield and water use efficiency. However, a too high plant density possibly results in maize yield loss. The reason for this negative effect of higher plant density on maize yield is that over high-density planting can lead to adverse effects including excessively high LAI causing self-shading, more barrenness, higher plant-to-plant variability and fierce interplant competition for soil water, fertilizer and radiation (Nyakudya and Stroosnijder, 2014; Trachsel et al., 2016; Jia et al., 2018).
The negative effects mentioned above of plant density on maize growth can be relieved by keeping field soil moisture. Considering that plastic film mulching has advantage of decreasing soil evaporation, thus combination of plant density and plastic film mulching is an effective way to improve maize yield and water use efficiency. Ren et al. (2017) presented a research on effecting of plastic film mulching and plant density on maize growth and water consumption and reported that plant density under plastic film mulching was higher than that under non-mulching. Chen et al. (2017) also reported that plastic film mulching can alleviate competition for limited water resources among maize plants and then increase maize yield. Although, plethora of studied have been carried out to evaluate the efficacy of plant density and plastic film mulching on maize growth and water use, the influence of these two combined agronomy measurements on water consumption and crop coefficient during different growth stages of maize has rarely been reported in previous literature.
Above all, the aims of this study were to determine the effects of plant density and plastic film mulching on actual evapotranspiration and its components of soil evaporation and maize transpiration at different maize growth stages and to quantify soil evaporation reduced and maize transpiration increased by plastic film mulching and higher plant density.
Section snippets
Experiment design
Experiments were conducted at the agricultural experimental field of Shenyang Agricultural University in the city of Shenyang (41°44′N, 123°27′E, 44.7 m a.s.l.), Liaoning Province, China in 2016 and 2017. There is a small meteorological station about fifty meters from the experimental field. The experimental site is characterized by a continental monsoon climate. From 1961 to 2017, the average annual air temperature was 8.0 ℃, with a frost-free period of 155 to 180 days and average annual
Calibration and verification of soil water storage
The parameters of the field water balance equation were calibrated by the measurements taken in 2016 and then verified by the dataset of 2017. The calibrated parameters are shown in Table 2. Fraction of soil surface wetted by irrigation or rainfall fw of each plant density calculated by Eq. (11) were illustrated in Table 3. Adjustment coefficient of plant density (Acm) estimated by Eq. (17) using LAI (Fig. 3) in 2016 and 2017 are listed in Table 4. The performance of the modelled field water
Effects of plastic film mulch and plant density on maize evapotranspiration
Research on effects of plastic film mulching on maize evapotranspiration received much attention from researchers. Most studies found that plastic film mulching can significantly reduce maize water consumption. Ren et al. (2017), who studied the influence of plastic film mulching and plant density on maize water consumption in the semi-humid region of North China, and found that compared with non-mulching treatment, plastic film mulching increased maize evapotranspiration by 21.4 mm. Similarly,
Conclusion
This work has adopted the dual crop coefficient method and field water balance model to assess the impact of plant density and plastic film mulch on maize transpiration, soil evaporation, maize crop coefficient and soil evaporation coefficient. The results showed that plastic film mulching increased maize transpiration by 20.0%–32.0% and 3.5%–15.4% and reduced soil evaporation by 51.8%–63.0% and 21.5%–39.5% in 2016 and 2017, respectively, ultimately reducing maize total evapotranspiration by
Acknowledgements
This research was financially supported by Natural Science Foundation of Liaoning Province (20180550617), the Special Program for National Key Research and Development Project of China (2018YFD0300301), Agro-scientific Research in the Public Interest of China (201303125) and the Young Scientists Fund of the National Natural Science Foundation of China (51609137).
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