Straw return reduces yield-scaled N 2 O plus NO emissions from annual winter wheat-based cropping systems in the North China Plain

2017 ◽  
Vol 590-591 ◽  
pp. 174-185 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zhisheng Yao ◽  
Guangxuan Yan ◽  
Xunhua Zheng ◽  
Rui Wang ◽  
Chunyan Liu ◽  
...  
2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (11) ◽  
pp. 4588
Author(s):  
Huanyuan Wang ◽  
Baoguo Li ◽  
Liang Jin ◽  
Kelin Hu

The North China Plain (NCP) is one of the most important grain production regions in China. However, it currently experiences water shortage, severe nonpoint source pollution, and low water and N use efficiencies (WUE and NUE). To explore sustainable agricultural development in this region, a field experiment with different cropping systems was conducted in suburban Beijing. These cropping systems included a winter wheat and summer maize rotation system for one year (WM), three harvests (winter wheat-summer maize-spring maize) in two years (HT), and continuous spring maize monoculture (CS). Novel ways were explored to improve WUE and NUE and to reduce N loss via the alternative cropping system based on the simulation results of a soil-crop system model. Results showed that the annual average yields were ranked as follows: WM > HT > CS. The N leaching of WM was much larger than that of HT and CS. WUE and NUE were ranked as follows: WM < HT < CS. Comprehensive evaluation indices based on agronomic and environmental effects indicated that CS or HT have significant potential for approaches characterized by water-saving, fertilizer-saving, high-WUE, and high-NUE properties. Once spring maize yield reached an ideal level HT and CS became a high-yield, water-saving, and fertilizer-saving cropping systems. Therefore, this method would be beneficial to sustainable agricultural development in the NCP.


Agronomy ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (11) ◽  
pp. 696 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shah Jahan Leghari ◽  
Kelin Hu ◽  
Hao Liang ◽  
Yichang Wei

The North China Plain (NCP) is experiencing serious groundwater level decline and groundwater nitrate contamination due to excessive water pumping and application of nitrogen (N) fertilizer. In this study, grain yield, water and N use efficiencies under different cropping systems including two harvests in 1 year (winter wheat–summer maize) based on farmer (2H1Y)FP and optimized practices (2H1Y)OPT, three harvests in 2 years (winter wheat–summer maize–spring maize, 3H2Y), and one harvest in 1 year (spring maize, 1H1Y) were evaluated using the water-heat-carbon-nitrogen simulator (WHCNS) model. The 2H1YFP system was maintained with 100% irrigation and fertilizer, while crop water requirement and N demand for other cropping systems were optimized and managed by soil testing. In addition, a scenario analysis was also performed under the interaction of linearly increasing and decreasing N rates, and irrigation levels. Results showed that the model performed well with simulated soil water content, soil N concentration, leaf area index, dry matter, and grain yield. Statistically acceptable ranges of root mean square error, Nash–Sutcliffe model efficiency, index of agreement values close to 1, and strong correlation coefficients existed between simulated and observed values. We concluded that replacing the prevalent 2H1YFP with 1H1Y would be ecofriendly at the cost of some grain yield decline. This cropping system had the highest average water use (2.1 kg m−3) and N use efficiencies (4.8 kg kg–1) on reduced water (56.64%) and N (81.36%) inputs than 2H1YFP. Whereas 3H2Y showed insignificant results in terms of grain yield, and 2H1YFP was unsustainable. The 2H1YFP system consumed a total of 745 mm irrigation and 1100 kg N ha–1 in two years. When farming practices were optimized for two harvests in 1 year system (2H1Y)OPT, then grain yield improved and water (18.12%) plus N (61.82%) consumptions were minimized. There was an ample amount of N saved, but water conservation was still unsatisfactory. However, considering the results of scenario analyses, it is recommended that winter wheat would be cultivated at <200 mm irrigation by reducing one irrigation event.


2021 ◽  
Vol 20 (6) ◽  
pp. 1687-1700
Author(s):  
Li-chao ZHAI ◽  
Li-hua LÜ ◽  
Zhi-qiang DONG ◽  
Li-hua ZHANG ◽  
Jing-ting ZHANG ◽  
...  

Water ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (11) ◽  
pp. 2416
Author(s):  
Ming Lei ◽  
Yuqian Zhang ◽  
Yuxuan Dang ◽  
Xiangbin Kong ◽  
Jingtao Yao

Agricultural water management is a vital component of realizing the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals because of water shortages worldwide leading to a severe threat to ecological environments and global food security. As an agro-intensified irrigation area, the North China Plain (NCP) is the most important grain basket in China, which produces 30%–40% of the maize and 60%–80% of the wheat for China. However, this area has already been one of the largest groundwater funnels in the world due to long-term over-exploitation of groundwater. Due to the low precipitation during the growing period, winter wheat requires a large amount of groundwater to be pumped for irrigation, which consumes 70% of the groundwater irrigation. To alleviate the overexploitation of groundwater, the Chinese government implemented the Winter Wheat Fallow Policy (WWFP) in 2014. The evaluation and summarization of the WWFP will be beneficial for improving the groundwater overexploitation areas under high-intensity irrigation over all the world. So far, there have been few attempts at estimating the effectiveness of this policy. To fill this gap, we assessed the planting area of field crops and calculated the evapotranspiration of crops based on remote-sensed and meteorological data in the key area—Hengshui. We compared the agricultural water consumption before and after the implementation of this policy, and we analyzed the relationship between changes in crop planting structure and groundwater variations based on geographically weighted regression. Our results showed the overall classification accuracies for 2013 and 2015 were 85.56% and 82.22%, respectively. The planting area of winter wheat, as the most reduced crop, decreased from 35.71% (314,053 ha) in 2013 to 32.98% (289,986 ha) in 2015. The actual reduction in area of winter wheat reached 84% of the target (26 thousand ha) of the WWFP. The water consumption of major crops decreased from 2.98 billion m3 of water in 2013 to 2.83 billion m3 in 2015, a total reduction of 146 million m3, and 88.43% of reduced target of the WWFP (166 million m3). The planting changes of winter wheat did not directly affect the change of shallow groundwater level, but ET was positively related to shallow groundwater level and precipitation was negatively related to shallow groundwater levels. This study can provide a basis for the WWFP’s improvement and the development of sustainable agriculture in high-intensity irrigation areas.


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