Dataset Information

Yield responses of wheat to mulching practices in dryland farming on the Loess Plateau.

ABSTRACT: Improving farming practices of soil and water conservation has profound effects on the yield of wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) in dryland farming regions of the Loess Plateau in China. Mulching has proven to be an effective practice to increase crop yield, and possibly contribute to replenishing groundwater. This evaluation study collected and analyzed the data of 1849 observations published in 38 papers using meta-analysis to investigate effects of the mulching practices on wheat yield in terms of different rainfall and regions in comparison with conventional tillage. The main results of the study follow. The effects of the mulching practices were ranked in the order of RFM (ridge-furrow mulching) > MTMC (mulching with two materials combined) > MOM (mulching with other materials) > WSM (wheat straw mulching) > FM (flat mulching). The effects of the mulching practices at the different levels of rainfall during the wheat growing season were in the order: (< 150 mm) > (> 250 mm) > (150-250 mm). The effects of the mulching practices in the different regions were in the order of Henan > Shanxi > Shaanxi > Gansu. WSM, MTMC and FM performed better in improving wheat yield for rainfall of < 150, 150-250 and > 250 mm during the growing season, respectively. The wheat yield with FM, MTMC, MOM and MOM was higher than those with the other mulching practices in Shaanxi, Gansu, Henan and Shanxi. The wheat yield with RFM was 27.4% higher than that with FM, indicating that RFM was the most effective practice to improve wheat yield among all the practices. These findings have important implications for choosing appropriate crop field management to improve wheat yield.

SUBMITTER: Wang LF

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4447293 | biostudies-literature | 2015

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Yield responses of wheat to mulching practices in dryland farming on the Loess Plateau.

Wang Li-fang LF Chen Juan J Shangguan Zhou-ping ZP

PloS one 20150528 5

Improving farming practices of soil and water conservation has profound effects on the yield of wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) in dryland farming regions of the Loess Plateau in China. Mulching has proven to be an effective practice to increase crop yield, and possibly contribute to replenishing groundwater. This evaluation study collected and analyzed the data of 1849 observations published in 38 papers using meta-analysis to investigate effects of the mulching practices on wheat yield in terms o ...[more]

PMID: 26020965

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Project description:Soil bacterial communities play an important role in nutrient recycling and storage in terrestrial ecosystems. Loess soils are one of the most important soil resources for maintaining the stability of vegetation ecosystems and are mainly distributed in northwest China. Estimating the distributions and affecting factors of soil bacterial communities associated with various types of vegetation will inform our understanding of the effect of vegetation restoration and climate change on these processes. In this study, we collected soil samples from 15 sites from north to south on the Loess Plateau of China that represent different ecosystem types and analyzed the distributions of soil bacterial communities by high-throughput 454 pyrosequencing. The results showed that the 142444 sequences were grouped into 36816 operational taxonomic units (OTUs) based on 97% similarity. The results of the analysis showed that the dominant taxonomic phyla observed in all samples were Actinobacteria, Proteobacteria, Chloroflexi, Acidobacteria and Planctomycetes. Actinobacteria and Proteobacteria were the two most abundant groups in all samples. The relative abundance of Actinobacteria increased from 14.73% to 40.22% as the ecosystem changed from forest to sandy, while the relative abundance of Proteobacteria decreased from 35.35% to 21.40%. Actinobacteria and Proteobacteria had significant correlations with mean annual precipitation (MAP), pH, and soil moisture and nutrients. MAP was significantly correlated with soil chemical and physical properties. The relative abundance of Actinobacteria, Proteobacteria and Planctomycetes correlated significantly with MAP, suggesting that MAP was a key factor that affected the soil bacterial community composition. However, along with the MAP gradient, Chloroflexi, Bacteroidetes and Cyanobacteria had narrow ranges that did not significantly vary with the soil and environmental factors. Overall, we conclude that the edaphic properties and/or vegetation types are driving bacterial community composition. MAP was a key factor that affects the composition of the soil bacteria on the Loess Plateau of China.

Dataset Information

Yield responses of wheat to mulching practices in dryland farming on the Loess Plateau.

Publications

Yield responses of wheat to mulching practices in dryland farming on the Loess Plateau.

Similar Datasets

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