Effects of N application on wheat powdery mildew occurrence, nitrogen accumulation and allocation in intercropping system

Abstract

The main objective of this field experiment was to study the effects of wheat and faba bean intercropping on occurrence of wheat powdery mildew, nitrogen content, accumulation and allocation of wheat plant at 4 nitrogen levels of N0(0 kg·hm-2), N1(112.5 kg·hm-2), N2(225 kg·hm-2), N3(337.5 kg·hm-2), and to explore the relationship between N content, accumulation, allocation and the occurrence of wheat powdery mildew. The results showed that both monocropped and intercropped wheat yields increased with nitrogen application, with the highest yields of monocropped and intercropped wheat being 4146 kg·hm-2 and 4679 kg·hm-2 at N2 le-vel, respectively. The occurrence and development of wheat powdery mildew become more severe with the increase of N application and area under disease progression curve (AUDPC) were averagely increased by 39.6%-55.6%(calculated with disease incidence, DI) and 92.5%-217.0% (calculated with disease severity index, DSI) with N1, N2 and N3 treatments. The disease severity index was more affected by nitrogen regulation than by disease incidence. The nitrogen content and accumulation of wheat plant were significantly increased by 8.4%-51.6% and 19.7%-133.7% with nitrogen application, but there was no significant effect on N allocation ratio. Compared with monocropped wheat, yield of intercropped wheat was averagely increased by 12%, whereas, the AUDPC(DI) and AUDPC(DSI) of intercropped wheat were averagely decreased by 11.5% and 30.7%, respectively. The control effect of the disease severity index by intercropping was better than disease incidence. The nitrogen content, accumulation and nitrogen allocation ratio in intercropped wheat leaves were significantly decreased by 6.6%-12.5%, 1.4%-6.9% and 9.0%-15.5% respectively at the peak infection stage of powdery mildew. Overall findings showed that the maximum rate of nitrogen application for wheat should not exceed 225 kg·hm-2 when taking into account both disease control and yield effect.