Abstract
In arid areas, water shortage is threating agricultural sustainability, and strip-intercropping may serve as a strategy to alleviate the challenge. Here we show that strip-intercropping enhances the spatial distributions of soil water across the 0–110 cm rooting zones, improves the coordination of soil water sharing during the co-growth period, and provides compensatory effect for available soil water. In a three-year (2009–2011) experiment, shorter-season pea (Pisum sativum L.) was sown in alternate strips with longer-season maize (Zea mays L.) without or with an artificially-inserted root barrier (a solid plastic sheet) between the strips. The intercropped pea used soil water mostly in the top 20-cm layers, whereas maize plants were able to absorb water from deeper-layers of the neighboring pea strips. After pea harvest, the intercropped maize obtained compensatory soil water from the pea strips. The pea-maize intercropping without the root barrier increased grain yield by 25% and enhanced water use efficiency by 24% compared with the intercropping with the root barrier. The improvement in crop yield and water use efficiency was partly attributable to the coordinated soil water sharing between the inter-strips and the compensatory effect from the early-maturing pea to the late-maturing maize.
Highlights
Millions of people in populated countries, such as China and India, live on small-scaled, self-sufficient family farms[1]
The central hypothesis of the study is that strip-intercropping enhances crop yield and Water use efficiency (WUE) may be related to (i) improved temporal distribution of soil water during the co-growth period, and (ii) the shorter-season pea provides a compensatory effect for soil water to the longer-season maize plants after pea harvest
We designed the field experiment with a layout of the intercrop strips as such that the maize and pea strip-intercropping with no artificial root barrier between the two strips and maize and pea strip-intercropping with a solid plastic sheet inserted between the two strips prior to sowing
Summary
Millions of people in populated countries, such as China and India, live on small-scaled, self-sufficient family farms[1]. The objectives of this study were to (i) determine the temporal and spatial distribution of soil water in the rooting zones of the two neighboring strips during the co-growth period, and (ii) quantify the magnitude of soil water sharing and compensation between the two intercrops under different levels of water availabilities. The central hypothesis of the study is that strip-intercropping enhances crop yield and WUE may be related to (i) improved temporal distribution of soil water during the co-growth period, and (ii) the shorter-season pea provides a compensatory effect for soil water to the longer-season maize plants after pea harvest. In the former treatment, by contrast, belowground interspecies activities may occur, such as root penetration and water and nutrient movement from one strip to the other
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