Modeling the Interaction of Plastic Film Mulch and Potato Canopy Growth with Soil Heat Transport in a Semiarid Area

You-Liang Zhang,Clinton C Shock,Feng-Xin Wang,Shao-Yuan Feng

doi:10.3390/agronomy10020190

You-Liang Zhang, Clinton C Shock + Show 2 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.3390/agronomy10020190

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Abstract

Plastic film mulch is an important agricultural technology to reduce water evaporation and modify the soil thermal conditions for crop production. The optical properties of plastic film mulch and the crop canopy growth are both key factors impacting soil heat transport in the soil-film-canopy-atmosphere ecosystem. In this study, a process-oriented model was developed to better understand the interaction among the plastic film mulch, potato (Solanum tuberosum L.) canopy growth, and soil thermal conditions. Canopy growth, photosynthetically active radiation transmittance, net radiation, soil heat flux, and temperature were monitored in a two-year plastic mulch field experiment in Wuwei (Gansu Province, China). Results showed that the simulation of daily soil surface temperature had a good performance with 2.8 and 1.5 °C of root mean square error (RMSE) for the transparent film mulch (TM) and black film mulch (BM), respectively. Moreover, the simulation of the daily net radiation and soil heat flux model indicated reasonable fluctuations with potato phenological development with the daily R2 ranging from 0.89 to 0.98 in 2014 and 2015 for the TM and BM treatments. It was shown that the canopy temperature under BM was greater than that in TM treatment, and the maximum value difference could be up to 7 °C during the early potato growing period, which implied that the BM may perform better in modifying the canopy thermal condition. The model could provide heat distribution information for plastic film choosing in potato field to avoid heat stress.

Highlights

Plastic film mulch has been widely used in agriculture, especially in arid and semiarid regions, since it can save soil water by reducing evaporation [1] and optimize the light and thermal environments for crops [2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11]
Model parameters were calibrated with the temperature of the plant canopy (Tc ), the temperature of the plastic film mulch (Tm ), the temperature of the soil surface (Ts ), the net radiation (Rn ), and the soil heat flux (G) which were measured in the potato field in 2014
The calibrated model was validated with Tc, Tm, Ts, Rn, and G measured in the potato field in 2015

Summary

Introduction

Plastic film mulch has been widely used in agriculture, especially in arid and semiarid regions, since it can save soil water by reducing evaporation [1] and optimize the light and thermal environments for crops [2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11]. Plastic film mulching can improve seed emergence [12,13], root growth [14,15], nutrient uptake [16], stem elongation [5,11], final yield and water use efficiency [17,18,19,20,21]. Some researchers report that the use of black plastic film mulch leads to higher crop yield than transparent plastic film mulch [12,23,24]. Others report that transparent plastic film mulch results in higher crop yield than black plastic film mulch [25,26].

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