Effects of plastic film mulching on soil water use efficiency and wheat yield in the Loess Plateau of China

Abstract

Increasing water use efficiency is indispensable for attaining high yields and achieving sustainable development in arid and semiarid areas. A two-year field experiment was conducted to explore the effects of plastic film mulching on soil water storage, consumption, water use efficiency, and wheat yield. Three treatments, including no fertilizer or mulching (CK), chemical fertilizer (F) and combined chemical fertilizer and plastic film mulching (FM), were applied. The results showed that compared with CK and F, FM increased soil water storage in the 0–200 cm layer by 0.90–1.35% and 0.57–1.23% in 2016–2017 and 2017–2018, respectively. In addition, mulching was conducive to increasing soil water storage in the 0–100 cm soil layer, especially in the 0–40 cm soil layer, while reducing water storage in the deeper soil layers. Furthermore, in the normal year, mulching could reduce soil water consumption and increase the rainfall utilization ratio. In addition, mulching increased wheat yield and water use efficiency.

Keywords:

• Dry land
• plastic film mulching
• yield
• water use efficiency
• winter wheat

Disclosure statement

The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the National Key Technology Research and Development Program for the Twelfth Five Year Plan under Grant [2015BAD22B02] and Shaanxi Science and Technology Co-ordinated Innovation Project under Grant [2016KTZDNY03-01].