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    农业生态环境-水肥管理Agro-ecosystem & Environment—Water & fertilizer management

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    Growth and nitrogen productivity of drip-irrigated winter wheat under different nitrogen fertigation strategies in the North China Plain
    Sunusi Amin ABUBAKAR, Abdoul Kader Mounkaila HAMANI, WANG Guang-shuai, LIU Hao, Faisal MEHMOOD, Abubakar Sadiq ABDULLAHI, GAO Yang, DUAN Ai-wang
    2023, 22 (3): 908-922.   DOI: 10.1016/j.jia.2022.08.107
    Abstract374)      PDF in ScienceDirect      

    Excessive application of nitrogen (N) fertilizer is the main cause of N loss and poor use efficiency in winter wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) production in the North China Plain (NCP).  Drip fertigation is considered to be an effective method for improving N use efficiency and reducing losses, while the performance of drip fertigation in winter wheat is limited by poor N scheduling.  A two-year field experiment was conducted to evaluate the growth, development and yield of drip-fertigated winter wheat under different split urea (46% N, 240 kg ha–1) applications.  The six treatments consisted of five fertigation N application scheduling programs and one slow-release fertilizer (SRF) application.  The five N scheduling treatments were N0–100 (0% at sowing and 100% at jointing/booting), N25–75 (25% at sowing and 75% at jointing and booting), N50–50 (50% at sowing and 50% at jointing/booting), N75–25 (75% at sowing and 25 at jointing/booting), and N100–0 (100% at sowing and 0% at jointing/booting).  The SRF (43% N, 240 kg ha–1) was only used as fertilizer at sowing.  Split N application significantly (P<0.05) affected wheat grain yield, yield components, aboveground biomass (ABM), water use efficiency (WUE) and nitrogen partial factor productivity (NPFP).  The N50–50 and SRF treatments respectively had the highest yield (8.84 and 8.85 t ha–1), ABM (20.67 and 20.83 t ha–1), WUE (2.28 and 2.17 kg m–3) and NPFP (36.82 and 36.88 kg kg–1).  This work provided substantial evidence that urea-N applied in equal splits between basal and topdressing doses compete economically with the highly expensive SRF for fertilization of winter wheat crops.  Although the single-dose SRF could reduce labor costs involved with the traditional method of manual spreading, the drip fertigation system used in this study with the N50–50 treatment provides an option for farmers to maintain wheat production in the NCP.

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    Drip fertigation and plant hedgerows significantly reduce nitrogen and phosphorus losses and maintain high fruit yields in intensive orchards
    SONG Ke, QIN Qin, YANG Ye-feng, SUN Li-juan, SUN Ya-fei, ZHENG Xian-qing, LÜ Wei-guang, XUE Yong
    2023, 22 (2): 598-610.   DOI: 10.1016/j.jia.2022.08.008
    Abstract224)      PDF in ScienceDirect      
    A field experiment was carried out to evaluate the effects of drip fertigation combined with plant hedgerows on nitrogen and phosphorus runoff losses in intensive pear orchards in the Tai Lake Basin.  Nitrogen and phosphorus runoff over a whole year were measured by using successional runoff water collection devices.  The four experimental treatments were conventional fertilization (CK), drip fertigation (DF), conventional fertilization combined with plant hedgerows (C+H), and drip fertigation combined with plant hedgerows (D+H).  The results from one year of continuous monitoring showed a significant positive correlation between precipitation and surface runoff discharge.  Surface runoff discharge under the treatments without plant hedgerows totaled 15.86% of precipitation, while surface runoff discharge under the treatments with plant hedgerows totaled 12.82% of precipitation.  Plant hedgerows reduced the number of runoff events and the amount of surface runoff.  Precipitation is the main driving force for the loss of nitrogen and phosphorus in surface runoff, and fertilization is an important factor affecting the losses of nitrogen and phosphorus.  In CK, approximately 7.36% of nitrogen and 2.63% of phosphorus from fertilization entered the surface water through runoff.  Drip fertigation reduced the accumulation of nitrogen and phosphorus in the surface soil and lowered the runoff loss concentrations of total nitrogen (TN) and total phosphorus (TP).  Drip fertigation combined with plant hedgerows significantly reduced the overall TN and TP losses by 45.38 and 36.81%, respectively, in comparison to the CK totals.  Drip fertigation increased the vertical migration depth of nitrogen and phosphorus nutrients and reduced the accumulation of nitrogen and phosphorus in the surface soil, which increased the pear yield.  The promotion of drip fertigation combined with plant hedgerows will greatly reduce the losses of nitrogen and phosphorus to runoff and maintain the high fruit yields in the intensive orchards of the Tai Lake Basin.

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    Optimizing water management practice to increase potato yield and water use efficiency in North China
    LI Yang, WANG Jing, FANG Quan-xiao, HU Qi, HUANG Ming-xia, CHEN Ren-wei, ZHANG Jun, HUANG Bin-xiang, PAN Zhi-hua, PAN Xue-biao
    2023, 22 (10): 3182-3192.   DOI: 10.1016/j.jia.2023.04.027
    Abstract202)      PDF in ScienceDirect      

    Potato is one of the staple food crops in North China.  However, potato production in this region is threatened by the low amount and high spatial-temporal variation of precipitation.  Increasing yield and water use efficiency (WUE) of potato by various water management practices under water resource limitation is of great importance for ensuring food security in China.  However, the contributions of different water management practices to yield and WUE of potato have been rarely investigated across North China’s potato planting region.  Based on meta-analysis of field experiments from the literature and model simulation, this study quantified the potential yields of potatoes without water and fertilizer limitation, and yield under irrigated and rainfed conditions, and the corresponding WUEs across four potato planting regions including the Da Hinggan Mountains (DH), the Foothills of Yanshan hilly (YH), the North foot of the Yinshan Mountains (YM), and the Loess Plateau (LP) in North China.  Simulated average potential potato tuber dry weight yield by the APSIM-Potato Model was 12.4 t ha–1 for the YH region, 11.4 t ha–1 for the YM region, 11.2 t ha–1 for the DH region, and 10.7 t ha–1 for the LP region, respectively.  Observed rainfed potato tuber dry weight yield accounted for 61, 30, 28 and 24% of the potential yield in the DH, YH, YM, and LP regions.  The maximum WUE of 2.2 kg m–3 in the YH region, 2.1 kg m–3 in the DH region, 1.9 kg m–3 in the YM region and 1.9 kg m–3 in the LP region was achieved under the potential yield level.  Ridge-furrow planting could boost yield by 8–49% and WUE by 2–36% while ridge-furrow planting with film mulching could boost yield by 35–89% and WUE by 7–57% across North China.  Our study demonstrates that there is a large potential to increase yield and WUE simultaneously by combining ridge-furrow planting with film mulching and supplemental irrigation in different potato planting regions with limited water resources.

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    Dynamic regulation of the irrigation–nitrogen–biochar nexus for the synergy of yield, quality, carbon emission and resource use efficiency in tomato

    Ping’an Zhang, Mo Li, Qiang Fu, Vijay P. Singh, Changzheng Du, Dong Liu, Tianxiao Li, Aizheng Yang
    2024, 23 (2): 680-697.   DOI: 10.1016/j.jia.2023.06.006
    Abstract263)      PDF in ScienceDirect      

    Integrated water and fertilizer management is important for promoting sustainable development of facility agriculture, and biochar plays an important role in guaranteeing food production, as well as alleviating water shortages and the overuse of fertilizers.  The field experiment had twelve treatments and a control (CK) trial including two irrigation amounts (I1, 100% ETm; I2, 60% ETm; where ETm is the maximum evapotranspiration), two nitrogen applications (N1, 360 kg ha–1; N2, 120 kg ha–1) and three biochar application levels (B1, 60 t ha–1; B2, 30 t ha–1 and B3, 0 t ha–1).  A multi-objective synergistic irrigation–nitrogen–biochar application system for improving tomato yield, quality, water and nitrogen use efficiency, and greenhouse emissions was developed by integrating the techniques of experimentation and optimization.  First, a coupled irrigation–nitrogen–biochar plot experiment was arranged.  Then, tomato yield and fruit quality parameters were determined experimentally to establish the response relationships between irrigation–nitrogen–biochar dosage and yield, comprehensive quality of tomatoes (TCQ), irrigation water use efficiency (IWUE), partial factor productivity of nitrogen (PFPN), and net greenhouse gas emissions (NGE).  Finally, a multi-objective dynamic optimization regulation model of irrigation–nitrogen–biochar resource allocation at different growth stages of tomato was constructed which was solved by the fuzzy programming method.  The results showed that the application of irrigation and nitrogen to biochar promoted increase in yield, IWUE and PFPN, while it had an inhibitory effect on NGE.  In addition, the optimal allocation amounts of water and fertilizer were different under different scenarios.  The yield of the S1 scenario increased by 8.31% compared to the B1I1N2 treatment; TCQ of the S2 scenario increased by 5.14% compared to the B2I2N1 treatment; IWUE of the S3 scenario increased by 10.01% compared to the B1I2N2 treatment; PFPN of the S4 scenario increased by 9.35% compared to the B1I1N2 treatment; and NGE of the S5 scenario decreased by 11.23% compared to the B2I1N1 treatment.  The optimization model showed that the coordination of multiple objectives considering yield, TCQ, IWUE, PFPN, and NGE increased on average from 4.44 to 69.02% compared to each treatment when the irrigation–nitrogen–biochar dosage was 205.18 mm, 186 kg ha–1 and 43.31 t ha–1, respectively.  This study provides a guiding basis for the sustainable management of water and fertilizer in greenhouse tomato production under drip irrigation fertilization conditions.

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    Irrigation and nitrogen fertiliser optimisation in protected vegetable fields of northern China: Achieving environmental and agronomic sustainability

    Bingqian Fan, Yitao Zhang, Owen Fenton, Karen Daly, Jungai Li, Hongyuan Wang, Limei Zhai, Xiaosheng Luo, Qiuliang Lei, Shuxia Wu, Hongbin Liu
    2024, 23 (3): 1022-1033.   DOI: 10.1016/j.jia.2023.12.019
    Abstract157)      PDF in ScienceDirect      

    Globally, sub-optimal use of nitrogen (N) fertiliser and elevated N irrigation groundwater have led to high leached nitrate (NO3) losses from protected vegetable field systems.  Optimising fertiliser and irrigation management in different soil types is crucial to reduce future N loads from such systems.  The present 4-year study examined leached N loads from lysimeter monitoring arrays set up across 18 protected vegetable system sites encompassing the dominant soil types of northern China.  The treatments applied at each field site were: 1) a high N and high irrigation input treatment (HNHI); 2) a low N but high irrigation input treatment (LNHI) and 3) a low N with low irrigation input treatment (LNLI).  Results showed that the mean annual leached total nitrogen loads from the HNHI, LNHI and LNLI treatments were 325, 294 and 257 kg N ha–1 in the fluvo-aquic soil, 114, 100 and 78 kg N ha–1 in the cinnamon soil and 79, 68 and 57 kg N ha–1 in the black soil, respectively.  The N dissolved in irrigation water in the fluvo-aquic soil areas was 8.26-fold higher than in the cinnamon areas.  A structural equation model showed that N fertiliser inputs and leaching water amounts explained 14.7 and 81.8% of the variation of leached N loads, respectively.  Correspondingly, reducing irrigation water by 21.5% decreased leached N loads by 20.9%, while reducing manure N and chemical N inputs by 22 and 25% decreased leached N loads by only 9.5%.  This study highlights that protected vegetable fields dominated by fluvo-aquic soil need management to curtail leached N losses in northern China.

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    Water and nitrogen footprint assessment of integrated agronomic practice management in a summer maize cropping system
    Ningning Yu, Bingshuo Wang, Baizhao Ren, Bin Zhao, Peng Liu, Jiwang Zhang
    2024, 23 (10): 3610-3621.   DOI: 10.1016/j.jia.2024.03.061
    Abstract141)      PDF in ScienceDirect      

    The footprints of water and nitrogen (WF and NF) provide a comprehensive overview of the type and quantity of water consumption and reactive nitrogen (Nr) loss in crop production.  In this study, a field experiment over two years (2019 and 2020) compared three integrated agronomic practice management (IAPM) systems: An improved management system (T2), a high-yield production system (T3), and an integrated soil–crop management system (ISCM) using a local smallholder farmer’s practice system (T1) as control, to investigate the responses of WF, Nr losses, water use efficiency (WUE), and nitrogen use efficiency (NUE) to IAPM.  The results showed that IAPM optimized water distribution and promoted water use by summer maize.  The evapotranspiration over the whole maize growth period of IAPM increased, but yield increased more, leading to a significant increase in WUE.  The WUE of the T2, T3, and ISCM treatments was significantly greater than in the T1 treatment, in 2019 and 2020 respectively, by 19.8–21.5, 31.8–40.6, and 34.4–44.6%.  The lowest WF was found in the ISCM treatment, which was 31.0% lower than that of the T1 treatment.  In addition, the ISCM treatment optimized soil total nitrogen (TN) distribution and significantly increased TN in the cultivated layer.  Excessive nitrogen fertilizer was applied in treatment T3, producing the highest maize yield, and resulting in the highest Nr losses.  In contrast, the ISCM treatment used a reduced nitrogen fertilizer rate, sacrificing grain yield partly, which reduced Nr losses and eventually led to a significant increase in nitrogen use efficiency and nitrogen recovery.  The Nr level in the ISCM treatment was 34.8% lower than in the T1 treatment while NUE was significantly higher than in the T1 treatment by 56.8–63.1% in 2019 and 2020, respectively.  Considering yield, WUE, NUE, WF, and NF together, ISCM should be used as a more sustainable and clean system for sustainable production of summer maize.


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