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Effects of chemical topping on cotton development, yield and quality in the Yellow River Valley of China
ZHU Ling-xiao, LIU Lian-tao, SUN Hong-chun, ZHANG Yong-jiang, ZHANG Ke, BAI Zhi-ying, LI An-chang, DONG He-zhong, LI Cun-dong
2022, 21 (1): 78-90.   DOI: 10.1016/S2095-3119(20)63559-6
Abstract350)      PDF in ScienceDirect      
Topping is a cultivation method that is widely practiced due to the indeterminate growth character of cotton (Gossypium hirsutum L.).  Among the different methods of accomplishing topping, manual topping is common in the Yellow River Valley of China, although it is time- and labor-intensive.  The objective of this study was to characterize the responses of cotton to different topping treatments with respect to development, yield and quality.  This study included field experiments from 2015 to 2016 with three different topping methods: manual topping (MT), chemical topping (CT) using mepiquat chloride, and a non-decapitation treatment (NT).  We found that the plant height, the number of fruiting branches and the length of upper fruiting branches of cotton treated with CT were significantly lower than NT.  The chlorophyll content of cotton treated with CT was not significantly different from NT, but was higher than that of MT in the later season.  CT enhanced plant development with reduced endogenous gibberellic acid and abscisic acid contents, and the apical development of the main stem was inhibited.  Compared with MT, CT significantly increased the biomass of the vegetative parts.  Most importantly, there were no significant differences in the yield or fiber quality between MT and CT.  These findings suggested that CT, a simplified and effective topping method, could be utilized as an alternative in the Yellow River Valley of China.
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Farm size and fertilizer sustainable use: An empirical study in Jiangsu, China
HU Ling-xiao, ZHANG Xiao-heng, ZHOU Ying-heng
2019, 18 (12): 2898-2909.   DOI: 10.1016/S2095-3119(19)62732-2
Abstract118)      PDF in ScienceDirect      
Inefficient use of fertilizer has caused serious environmental problems and unsustainable development of agriculture in China.  To meet the increasing food demand in the future without damaging the ecological environment, Chinese government officially launched the Action Plan for the Zero Growth of Fertilizer Use in 2015.  At the same time, China released a series of policies aiming explicitly at expanding farm size and a great number of large scale farmers emerged recently.  However, whether the expansion of farm size will be beneficial for the increase of fertilizer use efficiency still remains to be investigated.  In this study, we comprehensively explored the relationship between fertilizer use efficiency and farm size.  Based on the 4?281 farm households’ survey data collected by the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) of China from 2004 to 2016 in Jiangsu Province, China, this paper applies a stochastic frontier production function to estimate fertilizer use efficiency across farm size and uses a regression model to analyze the influence of farm size on fertilizer use efficiency.  The results show that: (1) the average fertilizer use efficiency of whole samples was only 0.60, much lower than the average technical efficiency, indicating that on average half of the fertilizer utilized are excessive in China; and (2) the smallest farm size group get the highest fertilizer use efficiency score.  We also provide some possible explanations for the inverse relationship between farm size and fertilizer use efficiency.
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