Crop residue incorporation combined with potassium fertilizer increased cotton canopy apparent photosynthesis and seed cotton yield in barley-cotton rotation system

ABSTRACT

The field experiment was conducted to evaluate the effects of crop residue incorporation and K fertilizer on seed cotton yield, K uptake and canopy apparent photosynthesis. Without K fertilizer, barley residue incorporation and barley-cotton residue incorporation increased seed cotton yield, total biomass, K uptake, leaf K concentration, leaf area index and canopy apparent photosynthesis in 2017 and 2018, while cotton residue incorporation increased these factors in 2018 and with 150 kg ha⁻¹ K₂O, barley residue incorporation and barley-cotton residue incorporation increased K uptake and leaf K concentration in 2017 and 2018, while these factors were influenced by cotton residue incorporation in 2018. Thus, the effects of crop residue incorporation on cotton growth depended on K fertilizer rate. In addition, crop residue incorporation could reduce K fertilizer input to some extent. Based on yield, barley residue incorporation and barley-cotton residue incorporation could reduce 73.7 kg ha⁻¹ K₂O (49.1%) and 70.1 kg ha⁻¹ K₂O (46.7%) in 2017, 53.6 kg ha⁻¹ K₂O (35.7%) and 89.5 kg ha⁻¹ K₂O (59.6%) in 2018, while cotton residue incorporation could reduce 38.0 kg ha⁻¹ K₂O (25.4%) in 2018.

KEYWORDS:

• Barley-cotton rotation system
• crop residue incorporation
• K fertilizer rate
• seed cotton yield
• canopy apparent photosynthesis

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the the National Key Research and Development Program of China [2017YFD02011900]; Jiangsu Collaborative Innovation Center for Modern Crop Production [JCIC-MCP].