Black film mulching can replace transparent film mulching in crop production

Abstract

• Film mulching increase water productivity by 20–47 % and increase yield by 17–35 %. • Film mulching reduce crop phenology by 4–9 % due to higher soil temperature. • Maize yield and marketable tuber rate of potato in BFM are higher than that TFM. • BFM does not use herbicides, so it reduces the input costs of crop production. • Net economic benefit in BFM is 5–11 % higher than that TFM for crop production. Plastic film mulching systems are widely used in crop production because of great benefits in increasing crop yields, but transparent film mulching (TFM) has negative impacts on crop production due to the high soil temperature under certain conditions. Because of its lower impacts on soil temperature, black film mulching (BFM) is being considered as an alternative to TFM. A meta-analysis was therefore conducted to compare the benefits and trade-offs of TFM and BFM use in potato, maize, and wheat production. Overall, the plant height, aboveground biomass, water use efficiency, and yield under plastic film mulching increased by 7–17 %, 27–59 %, 20–47 %, and 17–35 %, respectively. However, film mulching shortened the crop phenology by 4–9 % due to the higher soil temperature compared with non-mulching. Compared with TFM, the mean soil temperature over the crop growing season under BFM reduced by 1.1 °C, which resulted in a 3–5 % increase in phenology. This is a crucial factor for BFM to increase maize yield by 6% and improve marketable tuber rate of potato by 9%, which led to higher profits, compared with TFM. In addition, no herbicide was used in BFM system, thereby eliminating the costs of herbicide and its application. As a result, the net economic benefits in BFM were 5–11 % higher than those in TFM for crop production. In conclusion, the BFM system leads to greater crop growth and higher economic benefits than the TFM system, especially for maize and potato. Policies and investment incentives that support the promotion of BFM technology should be prioritized in order to pursue these greater benefits.