Is Cattle Manure Application with Plastic-Film Mulch a Good Choice for Potato Production?

Chaobiao Meng,Kaijing Yang,Youliang Zhang,Bernard A Engel,Fengxin Wang

doi:10.3390/agronomy9090534

Abstract

Using manure in potato production has been considered for its potential environmentally friendly effects. Two years of field experiments were conducted to evaluate the effects of different kinds of fertilizer and soil surface treatments on potato growth. Experimental treatments consisted of three soil surface treatments, including black plastic-film mulch (BM), transparent film-plastic mulch (TM), and non-mulched (NM) treatment, and two fertilizer treatments, including inorganic fertilizer (IF), and cattle manure (CM). The results showed that low environmental temperatures at early growth stages harmed potato growth. The more suitable hydrothermal environment under BM treatment induced 9–67%, 1–223%, 15–30%, −1–11% and 18–34% greater plant height, leaf area index (LAI), tuber yield, crop evapotranspiration (ETc) and water use efficiency (WUE), respectively, than NM and TM treatments. Plastic-film mulch increased soil carbon dioxide concentration, especially for the TM treatment. With low soil nitrogen content during the whole growth stage, and high soil carbon dioxide concentration during sprout and seedling stages, the CM treatment reduced plant height, LAI, tuber yields, ETc and WUE by 27–155%, 2–96%, 6–23%, 2–6% and 8–25%, respectively. These results suggest that inorganic fertilizer with black plastic-film mulch is still the best choice for potato production, and further studies are needed to identify the best level of cattle manure used under black plastic-film mulch.

Highlights

Potato has been identified as the fourth staple food following rice, wheat, and maize in China, and more than 50 percent of the tuber production is expected to be consumed as a staple food by2020 [1]
The objectives of this study were to investigate the effect of different soil surface and fertilizer treatments on potato growth, evapotranspiration, water use efficiency, and tuber yield, and to determine whether manure application could give satisfactory potato production in semiarid regions as an alternative to inorganic fertilizer under plastic-film mulch
Emergence could promote the growth of biomass above ground [27,28], resulting in the greatest plant height, leaf area index (LAI), and tuber yield seen under black plastic-film mulch in this study

Summary

Introduction

Potato has been identified as the fourth staple food following rice, wheat, and maize in China, and more than 50 percent of the tuber production is expected to be consumed as a staple food by2020 [1]. Annual tuber production increased from 81.5 million tons to 99.1 million tons from 2010 to. More and more inorganic N fertilizer has been applied in the last 30 years in China. The amount of inorganic N fertilizer applied in 2016 was 30.5 million tons and was 2.5 times the amount used in the USA [2]. Excessive inorganic N inputs have induced a series of environmental problems, such as increasing greenhouse gas emissions [3], aggravating nitrate pollution in agricultural watersheds [4], decreasing biodiversity, and changing the bacterial composition in soil [5]. According to the “Zero Increase Action Plan” announced by the Chinese Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs in 2015, reducing N fertilizer input is one of the most important requisites for Chinese agricultural

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