Effects of vertical rotary subsoiling with combined organic and inorganic fertilization on water use efficiency and yield of forage maize in a semi-arid area.

Abstract

Both reasonable soil tillage and fertilization management play critical roles in improving the yield and water use efficiency (WUE) of forage maize in the semi-arid area of Loess Plateau. A field experiment was conducted at Dingxi experimental station of Gansu Academy of Agricultural Sciences between 2017 and 2019. We explored the effects of tillage method and fertilization type on yields and WUE of forage maize, as well as the economic benefits. There were four treatments in the experiment, including traditional rotary tillage + organic-inorganic fertilization (TOF), deep rotary tillage + organic-inorganic fertilization (DOF), and vertical rotary subsoiling + organic-inorganic fertilization (VROF), and the traditional rotary tillage + inorganic fertilization as the control (TF). Our results showed that, compared with DOF, TOF, TF, and VROF all decreased soil water storage in 0-300 cm soil layer at flowering stage, ranging from 16.9 mm to 79.9 mm, but they all increased soil water consumption by 9.7-22.4 mm during vegetative growing stages, 11.0-19.8 mm during reproductive stage in the dry years. Due to significant improvement in water absorption, VROF increased dry matter weight at maturity by 3.9%-13.4% compared to other treatments. Similarly, plant height, ear length, grain number per ear, 100-grain weight, and double ear rate under VROF were significantly increased, while bald head length was decreased significantly, when compared with other treatments. As a result, over the three experimental seasons, VROF increased the grain and biological yield by 4.3%-51.5% and 4.3%-25.7% compared to other treatments, respectively. Accordingly, WUE calculated by grain and biomass yields were increased by 2.7%-36.9% and 3.6%-13.5% under VROF, compared to other treatments. VROF increased the unit gross total output value and the net income by 5.1%-32.9% and 6.9%-80.5% respectively, compared to other treatments. These results demonstrated that VROF is a drought-resistant and yield-increasing farming technology for sustainable forage maize production in the semi-arid area of the Loess Plateau, Northwest China.