Abstract
Soil infertility is the main barrier to dryland agricultural production in China. To provide a basis for the establishment of a soil amelioration technical system for rainfed fields in the semiarid area of northwest China, we conducted a four—year (2007–2011) field experiment to determine the effects of wheat straw incorporation on the arid soil nutrient levels of cropland cultivated with winter wheat after different straw incorporation levels. Three wheat straw incorporation levels were tested (H: 9000 kg hm-2, M: 6000 kg hm-2, and L: 3000 kg hm-2) and no straw incorporation was used as the control (CK). The levels of soil nutrients, soil organic carbon (SOC), soil labile organic carbon (LOC), and enzyme activities were analyzed each year after the wheat harvest. After straw incorporation for four years, the results showed that variable straw amounts had different effects on the soil fertility indices, where treatment H had the greatest effect. Compared with CK, the average soil available N, available P, available K, SOC, and LOC levels were higher in the 0–40 cm soil layers after straw incorporation treatments, i.e., 9.1–30.5%, 9.8–69.5%, 10.3–27.3%, 0.7–23.4%, and 44.4–49.4% higher, respectively. On average, the urease, phosphatase, and invertase levels in the 0–40 cm soil layers were 24.4–31.3%, 9.9–36.4%, and 42.9–65.3% higher, respectively. Higher yields coupled with higher nutrient contents were achieved with H, M and L compared with CK, where these treatments increased the crop yields by 26.75%, 21.51%, and 7.15%, respectively.
Highlights
In recent years, the increasingly severe food crisis means that producing sufficient food to sustain the huge population of China has become a major priority of the government
Compared with CK, H treatment resulted in higher Available phosphorus (AP) contents (P < 0.05), and the increase were in the range of 44.4–61.4% throughout the straw incorporation experiment, followed by M treatment with an increase between 25.9% to 39.9% higher than CK, the differences were significant
Zhang et al [35] investigated the effects of chemical fertilizer and wheat straw incorporation on soil fertility in a spring wheat continuous cropping system on a Kastanozem soil in the Hehuang irrigation region of Qinghai province and showed that the soil N, P, and K contents were higher with straw incorporation treatments compared with chemical fertilization treatments, where the nutrient contents increased with the amount of straw
Summary
The increasingly severe food crisis means that producing sufficient food to sustain the huge population of China has become a major priority of the government. Chemical fertilizer application is one of the most common agricultural management practices and it has made a significant contribution to crop yield increases [1]. Long-term excessive fertilization can lead to many problems, such as deterioration in the soil [2] and groundwater. Effect of Straw Incorporation on Soil Nutrients and Enzyme (31201156), and by the Basic Science Research Fund in Northwest A&F University (QN2013005). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript
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