Elsevier

Agricultural Water Management

Volume 225, 20 November 2019, 105765
Agricultural Water Management

Assessing the effects of plant density and plastic film mulch on maize evaporation and transpiration using dual crop coefficient approach

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.agwat.2019.105765Get rights and content

Highlights

  • The mulching treatment increased the basal crop coefficient and reduced the evaporation coefficient for maize.

  • Plastic film mulching increased ratio of transpiration to evapotranspiration.

  • Maize transpiration increased with the increase of planting density.

  • Maize evaporation increased with the increase of planting density under mulching treatments but decreased under non-mulching treatments.

Abstract

Plastic film mulching, in combination with high plant density, is a common practice for rain-fed maize production, especially in Northeastern China. To explore effects of plant density and plastic film mulching on the evapotranspiration of maize during its different growth periods, a two-year split-plot field experiment with non-mulching (M0) and plastic film mulching (M1) and three plant densities (60,000 (D1), 75,000 (D2), and 90,000 plants ha−1 (D3)) was conducted at a site of Shenyang located in the Northeast China in 2016 and 2017. Based on the field experimental data of spring maize, water balance equation and dual crop coefficient method were adopted to explore effects of plant density and plastic film mulch on evapotranspiration of maize at different growing stages. The results showed that compared with non-mulching treatment, the plastic film mulching increased maize transpiration by about 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. Overall, the mulching treatment significantly reduced maize water consumption by about 12.4% and 6.2% in 2016 and 2017, respectively. The mulching treatment also increased the basic maize crop coefficient by 0.03–0.07 and reduced the average evaporation coefficient by 0.14, compared with non-mulching treatment. In addition, compared with non-mulching, plastic film mulching increased ratio of transpiration by 19%–32% and 5%–12% in 2016 and 2017, respectively. For effects of plant density on maize evapotranspiration, higher plant density resulted in more evapotranspiration during the whole growth season of maize except for its initial growth stage. The average evapotranspiration of D1–D3 treatments from two growing seasons of maize were 469.2, 509.6 and 534.1 mm, respectively. For evaporation and transpiration, the maize transpiration increased with the increase of planting density, and the maize evaporation increased with the increase of planting density under plastic film mulching conditions but decreased with non-mulching treatment.

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).

References (28)

Cited by (44)

  • Residual plastic film exerts dual effects of blocking and preferential flow on soil water movement

    2023, Soil and Tillage Research
    Citation Excerpt :

    Plastic-film mulching (PFM) technology is an important measure to promote agricultural production (Ibrahim and Khan, 2017; Li et al., 2021), crop yield, and water use efficiency (Zhang et al., 2019; Chen et al., 2020) by increasing soil temperature (Lee et al., 2019; Jones et al., 2021), reducing soil evaporation (Chen et al., 2023), weed and pest (Chen et al., 2019; Wu et al., 2017; Haque et al., 2018), and preserving soil moisture (Ibrahim et al., 2020; Zhang et al., 2018) in the arid and semi-arid regions.

View all citing articles on Scopus
View full text