Abstract
Dryland winter wheat in the Loess Plateau is facing a yield reduction due to a shortage of soil moisture and delayed sowing time. The field experiment was conducted at Loess Plateau in Shanxi, China from 2012 to 2015, to study the effect of subsoiling and conventional tillage and different sowing dates on the soil water storage, Nitrogen (N) accumulation, and remobilization and yield of winter wheat. The results showed that subsoiling significantly improved the soil water storage (0–300 cm soil depth) and increased the contribution of N translocation to grain N and grain yield (17–36%). Delaying sowing time had reduced the soil water storage at sowing and winter accumulated growing degree days by about 180 °C. The contribution of N translocation to grain yield was maximum in glume + spike followed by in leaves and minimum by stem + sheath. Moreover, there was a positive relationship between the N accumulation and translocation and the soil moisture in the 20–300 cm range. Subsoiling during the fallow period and the medium sowing date was beneficial for improving the soil water storage and increased the N translocation to grain, thereby increasing the yield of wheat, especially in a dry year.
Highlights
Wheat is the dominant crop in the Loess Plateau, accounting for 35% of the total planting area [1,2].Dryland wheat production in Loess Plateau is highly dependent on the timing and extent of rainfall, whereas most of the precipitation is mainly concentrated during the summer fallow period
Soil water storage in 0–300 cm layer storage was more under the subsoiling practices as compared
Soil water storage in 0–300 cm layer storage was more under the subsoiling practices as to conventional tillage (Figure 1)
Summary
Wheat is the dominant crop in the Loess Plateau, accounting for 35% of the total planting area [1,2].Dryland wheat production in Loess Plateau is highly dependent on the timing and extent of rainfall, whereas most of the precipitation is mainly concentrated during the summer fallow period. Significant climatic changes have been observed in this area, such as average precipitation is decreasing by 3 mm and the average temperature is increasing by 0.6 ◦ C per decade with the sudden incidence of drought [3,4]. These climatic changes are causing the unstable wheat production in dryland areas of Shanxi province due to extreme variation in precipitation and low water retention capacity of soil [5]. Improving soil water conservation is crucial to increase the yield of dryland wheat
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