Abstract
The mulched drip-irrigation technique has been widely employed in Xinjiang, China, however, it was found to result in the buildup of salt in the surface soil. To ascertain the effect of mulched drip irrigation on salinization, experiments were carried out during 2009–2010 in two fields of mulched soil drip irrigated for three and 13 years. The solute transportation in soil was simulated with the MATLAB system based on the Richards equations. Results showed that the soil mulched by plastic film did not accumulate salt, but the bare soil surface accumulated salt and the salinity distribution in bare soil was in the ‘Γ’ pattern. The soil layer below a depth of 20 cm in the bare area showed desalination because its salt content was 22% less than the surface. The salinity of bare surface soil including cultivated horizon was reduced by 17% after 13 years of drip irrigation. The simulation results indicated that the solutes of mulched soil were transported vertically to deep soil and transversely to the bare soil with drip irrigation. Thus, the salt accumulated on the surface of bare soil came from the soil mulched by plastic film, not from groundwater or saline irrigation water and did not cause secondary salinization.
Highlights
Since the successful trial of mulched drip-irrigation technology by Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps in 1996, it has been widely applied in arid and semi-arid regions in China and has even been promoted in some countries of Central Asia
In this study, we explored the relationship of drip-irrigation under mulching with the accumulation and distribution of salt in the soil based on field observations and numerical simulations to ascertain the effect of mulched drip irrigation on salinization
The salt content in field 2 was measured to observe the effect of drip irrigation under mulching on the vertical distribution of salt in naturally saline soil under mulching and bare soil (Figure 3)
Summary
Since the successful trial of mulched drip-irrigation technology by Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps in 1996, it has been widely applied in arid and semi-arid regions in China and has even been promoted in some countries of Central Asia. Mulched drip-irrigation is characterized by shallow irrigation and has no leaching [1,2], and it has been reported to move salt under the mulched soil to the bare land outside the mulch [3]. Some scholars have thought that the accumulation of salt in the bare land outside the mulching with the drip irrigation and salt accumulation at the edges of the wetting front without elution would lead to soil secondary salinization [5,6,7,8]. Secondary soil salinization is different from the salinization of surface soil. In the salinization of surface soil, there is a sudden change in salt content in the surface soil. In the Xinjiang region, salt content in
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