Optimum planting date and cultivar maturity to optimize potato yield and yield stability in North China
Introduction
Potato is the world’s fourth-largest food crop, with global annual total potato yield of 330 Mt (FAO, 2016; Tang et al., 2018a). China is the largest potato producer with almost a quarter of the world’s total yield (Qiu et al., 2016). Potato is mainly planted in North China, and single cropping accounts for 53.9 % and 49.2 % of total planting area and yield, respectively, in China (Tang et al., 2019). However, potato production in this region is severely limited by low and highly variable annual and growing season precipitation (Cabello et al., 2012; Zhao et al., 2014; Tang et al., 2018a, 2018b, 2019; Li et al., 2019). For the rainfed single-cropping system, adjusting planting date and cultivar selection are two effective low-cost options to improve crop yield and reduce yield variability by matching crop demands on the supply of hydrothermal assets (Jansky et al., 2009; Dinah et al., 2018; Tang et al., 2018b; Li et al., 2019).
A large number of field experimental studies have shown that optimal planting date and cultivar maturity vary with regions due to different climate conditions (Wang et al., 2015a; Li et al., 2016; Heltoft et al., 2017; Dong et al., 2018; Tang et al., 2018b). However, even within the same region, there is controversy as to whether early or late planting could achieve greater water use efficiency and yield (Zhao et al., 2005; Shen et al., 2012). Selecting middle- or late-maturing cultivars would improve potato yield if growing season temperature could meet the potato growth requirement (Li et al., 2016, 2019; Tang et al., 2019). However, early-maturing cultivars could achieve higher yield than middle- or late-maturing cultivars under water-stress conditions, especially under terminal drought conditions (Alva et al., 2002; Xie et al., 2012; Dong et al., 2018; Zhang et al., 2018). Few studies have focused on the interaction of planting date and cultivar maturity on rainfed potato yield and yield stability in North China.
Field experiments could help identify the optimal planting date and cultivar maturity (Florio et al., 2014; Yu and Wang, 2015; Li et al., 2016; Tang et al., 2018a). However, field experiments with various planting dates and cultivar maturities at different sites are costly and time-consuming. Moreover, field experimental results with limited sites and years are difficult to be extrapolated to other regions and years due to large differences in climates between regions and years (Jones et al., 2003). Crop models could provide a low-cost way to capture the interactions of different physiological and physical processes and to simulate the responses of crop growth and development to environmental change (He et al., 2017). Therefore, models have been recognized to be effective tools in investigating optimal planting dates of potato in North China (Tang et al., 2018b, 2019). However, these studies did not investigate the interaction of planting date and cultivar maturity on potato yield and yield variability. Therefore, the objectives of this study were to: (1) evaluate the performance of the APSIM-Potato model in simulating the growth and development of potato under different combinations of planting date and cultivar maturity in North China, (2) investigate the interaction of the planting date and cultivar maturity on potato yield and yield variability in North China, and (3) develop a simple and feasible rule to recommend the optimal combinations of planting date and cultivar maturity across North China.
Section snippets
Study region, sites, and soil data
Six typical potato production sites along a ‘West-East’ (‘W-E’) transect including Dulan (DL, 36.3 °N, 98.1 °E, alt. 3192.1 m), Haiyuan (HY, 36.6 °N, 105.7 °E, alt. 1855.5 m), and Yan’an (YA, 36.6 °N, 109.5 °E, alt. 958.8 m), and a ‘Northeast-Southwest’ (‘N-S’) transect including Qiqihaer (QH, 47.4 °N, 123.9 °E, alt. 147.3 m), Kailu (KL, 43.6 °N, 121.3 °E, alt. 242.3 m), and Zhangjiakou (ZJ, 40.8 °N, 114.9 °E, alt. 725.8 m) in North China were selected to determine the optimal combination of
Performance of APSIM-Potato
Figs. 6,7,8 show that APSIM-Potato performed well in simulating phenology, soil water dynamics, total dry matter, and fresh yield of potato under different combinations of planting date and cultivar maturity with the calibrated cultivar parameters (Table 2). The RMSEs between observed and simulated durations of four growth stages ranged from 2.2 to 4.9 days (Fig. 6). Simulated soil water contents in the 100-cm soil profile followed the observed pattern over time with the RRMSEs in 2017 and 2018
Discussion
The APSIM-Potato model can effectively simulate the growth and development of potato in response to variation in planting dates in North China (Tang et al., 2018a, 2019). Our study further evaluated the model in simulating the growth and development of potato in response to variations in planting date and cultivar maturity in North China based on field experimental data from a 2-year х 3-planting dates х 3-cultivars study. The simulated results showed that APSIM-Potato could perform well in
Conclusions
Low amount and high variation of growing season precipitation limit potato production in North China. Optimizing planting date and cultivar maturity could boost potato yield and reduce yield variability in North China. The optimal combination of planting date and cultivar maturity could be selected according to March-May precipitation before planting, and this is a simple but feasible method for farmers to apply in guiding agricultural production. Considering high-stable yield of potato, late
Declaration of Competing Interest
The authors report no declarations of interest.
Acknowledgements
The work was supported by the Key R&D Program of Inner Mongolia, China (2020ZD0005) and the S&T Program of Inner Mongolia, China (2019GG016). We would like to thank China Meteorological Administration for providing the historical climate data. The authors acknowledge the anonymous referees for their valuable comments.
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2022, Science of the Total EnvironmentCitation Excerpt :Adjusting potato growth period by optimizing planting date and cultivar maturity could make potato growing under suitable climate condition and decrease hydrothermal stress (Van Duinen et al., 2015; Li et al., 2022b). Especially for the rainfed cropping system, optimization of planting date could mitigate water stress by matching crop demand with supply of precipitation resources (Tang et al., 2018; Li et al., 2020, 2021, 2022b). Our previous studies found that late planting could increase climate resilience of potato planting by avoiding high precipitation variation in the front of growing season in North Single planting region (NS) under rainfed condition while planting date should be advanced with increased irrigation (Li et al., 2021, 2022b).
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2022, European Journal of AgronomyCitation Excerpt :We did not compare actual potato yield from the statistical data with our simulation because there were lack of detailed records for cultivars and agronomic management practices in the statistical yearbooks. However, the performance of APSIM-Potato model in simulating the growth and development, water consumption, and fresh yield in response to climate, cultivar, and agronomic management has been tested widely in previous studies (Brown et al., 2011; Tang et al., 2019, 2020; Li et al., 2021). Irrigation can greatly increase potato yield, however, limited freshwater resources constrain the application of irrigation in China (Rosa et al., 2018).
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2022, Field Crops ResearchCitation Excerpt :We recommended the OPDs of oats and potato based on January−March precipitation because previous studies demonstrated that these crops should be planted with enough soil moisture before planting (Wolf et al., 2015). We found that January−March precipitation related positively with the ratio of June−July precipitation to growing season precipitation (PJ-J/PGS) while related negatively with the ratio of August−September precipitation to PGS (PA-S/PGS) (Fig. 12a) (Li et al., 2021). Therefore, the optimal planting dates of oats and potato should be advanced with the increase in January−March precipitation to match the high PJ-J with the water requirements of oats and potato (Tang et al., 2018b).