Plant Soil Environ., 2017, 63(1):22-28 | DOI: 10.17221/692/2016-PSE

Effects of winter wheat season tillage on soil properties and yield of summer maizeOriginal Paper

Yunqi WANG, Yinghua ZHANG*, Zhimin WANG, Hongbin TAO, Shunli ZHOU, Pu WANG
College of Agronomy and Biotechnology, China Agricultural University, Beijing, P.R. China

The North China Plain (NCP) serves as China's second most important maize production region. Rotary tillage, a popular method used in winter wheat/summer maize systems in the region, has adverse effects on maize production. The current study was conducted to determine whether rotary tillage after subsoiling in the winter wheat season (RS) improves the grain-filling rate and yield of summer maize by decreasing soil bulk density, when compared with rotary tillage (R), in the NCP. The RS treatment decreased soil bulk density and increased soil moisture in the summer maize season when compared with the R treatment. Root number under the RS treatment at 8 collar and silking stages was 22.4-35.3% and 8.0-11.7% greater than under the R treatment, respectively. The RS treatment significantly enhanced the grain-filling rate and grain weight as compared to the R treatment. Yield, thousand grain weight, biomass, and harvest index under the RS treatment were 7.7, 7.2, 2.3 and 5.3% higher than under the R treatment. Thousands grain weight was correlated with soil bulk density and soil moisture after silking. Consequently, the increase in grain weight and yield of summer maize resulted from the decrease in soil bulk density and a consequent increase in soil moisture, root number and grain-filling rate.

Keywords: Triticum aestivum; Zea mays; cropping system; soil environment; degradation

Published: January 31, 2017  Show citation

ACS AIP APA ASA Harvard Chicago Chicago Notes IEEE ISO690 MLA NLM Turabian Vancouver
WANG Y, ZHANG Y, WANG Z, TAO H, ZHOU S, WANG P. Effects of winter wheat season tillage on soil properties and yield of summer maize. Plant Soil Environ. 2017;63(1):22-28. doi: 10.17221/692/2016-PSE.
Share...
Download citation
  • BibTeX (.bib)
  • Bookends (.ris)
  • EasyBib (.ris)
  • EndNote (.enw)
  • EndNote 8 (.xml)
  • ISI WoS (.isi)
  • Medlars (.medlars)
  • Mendeley (.ris)
  • MODS (.xml)
  • Papers (.ris)
  • RefWorks (.txt)
  • RefManager (.ris)
  • RIS (.ris)
  • MS Word (.xml)
  • Zotero (.ris)
    • Open full article

    References

    1. Allison J.C.S., Daynard T.B. (1979): Effect of change in time of flowering, induced by altering photoperiod or temperature, on attributes related to yield in maize. Crop Science, 19: 1-4. Go to original source...
    2. Arvidsson J., Bölenius E., Cavalieri K.M.V. (2012): Effects of compaction during drilling on yield of sugar beet (Beta vulgaris L.). European Journal of Agronomy, 39: 44-51. Go to original source...
    3. Borrás L., Otegui M.E. (2001): Maize kernel weight response to post flowering source-sink ratio. Crop Science, 41: 1816-1822. Go to original source...
    4. Du T.S., Kang S.Z., Sun J.S., Zhang X.Y., Zhang J.H. (2010): An improved water use efficiency of cereals under temporal and spatial deficit irrigation in north China. Agricultural Water Management, 97: 66-74. Go to original source...
    5. Gajri P.R., Arora V.K., Prihar S.S. (1992): Tillage management for efficient water and nitrogen use in wheat following rice. Soil and Tillage Research, 24: 167-182. Go to original source...
    6. Gambín B.L., Borrás L., Otegui M.E. (2006): Source-sink relations and kernel weight differences in maize temperate hybrids. Field Crops Research, 95: 316-326. Go to original source...
    7. Gasura E., Setimela P.S., Edema R., Gibson P., Tarekegne A., Okori P. (2013): Exploiting grain-filling rate and effective grain-filling duration to improve grain yield of early-maturing maize. Crop Science, 53: 2295-2303. Go to original source...
    8. Johnson D.R., Tanner J.W. (1972): Comparisons of corn (Zea mays L.) inbreds and hybrids grown at equal leaf area index, light penetration, and population. Crop Science, 12: 482-485. Go to original source...
    9. Klepper B. (1990): Root growth and water uptake. In: Stewart B.A., Nielsen D.R. (eds.): Irrigation of Agricultural Crops. Madison, ASA-CSSA-SSSA, 281-322.
    10. Liu T.N., Gu L.M., Xu C.L., Dong S.T. (2014): Responses of group and individual leaf photosynthetic characteristics of two summer maize (Zea mays L.) to leaf removal under high plant density. Canadian Journal of Plant Science, 94: 1449-1459. Go to original source...
    11. Liu X.W., Feike T., Shao L.W., Sun H.Y., Chen S.Y., Zhang X.Y. (2016): Effects of different irrigation regimes on soil compaction in a winter wheat-summer maize cropping system in the North China Plain. Catena, 137: 70-76. Go to original source...
    12. Mu X.Y., Zhao Y.L., Liu K., Ji B.Y., Guo H.B., Xue Z.W., Li C.H. (2016): Responses of soil properties, root growth and crop yield to tillage and crop residue management in a wheat-maize cropping system on the North China Plain. European Journal of Agronomy, 78: 32-43. Go to original source...
    13. Parlak M., Parlak A.Ö. (2011): Effect of soil compaction on root growth and nutrient uptake of forage crops. Food, Agriculture and Environment, 9: 275-278.
    14. Shi Y., Yu Z.W., Man J.G., Ma S.Y., Gao Z.Q., Zhang Y.L. (2016): Tillage practices affect dry matter accumulation and grain yield in winter wheat in the North China Plain. Soil and Tillage Research, 160: 73-81. Go to original source...
    15. Singh K., Choudhary O.P., Singh H. (2013): Effects of sub-soiling on sugarcane productivity and soil properties. Journal of Sugarcane Research, 2: 32-36.
    16. Souch C.A., Martin P.J., Stephens W., Spoor G. (2004): Effects of soil compaction and mechanical damage at harvest on growth and biomass production of short rotation coppice willow. Plant and Soil, 263: 173-182. Go to original source...
    17. Sun M., Gao Z.Q., Zhao W.F., Deng L.F., Deng Y., Zhao H.M., Ren A.X., Li G., Yang Z.P. (2013): Effect of subsoiling in fallow period on soil water storage and grain protein accumulation of dryland wheat and its regulatory effect by nitrogen application. PLoS ONE, 8: e75191. Go to original source... Go to PubMed...
    18. Wang H.G., Guo Z.J., Shi Y., Zhang Y.L., Yu Z.W. (2015): Impact of tillage practices on nitrogen accumulation and translocation in wheat and soil nitrate-nitrogen leaching in drylands. Soil and Tillage Research, 153: 20-27. Go to original source...
    19. Wang Q.J., Lu C.Y., Li H.W., He J., Sarker K.K., Rasaily R.G., Liang Z.H., Qiao X.D., Li H., Mchugh A.D.J. (2014): The effects of no-tillage with subsoiling on soil properties and maize yield: 12-Year experiment on alkaline soils of Northeast China. Soil and Tillage Research, 137: 43-49. Go to original source...
    20. Wang Y.Q., Tao H.B., Wang P., Guo B.Q., Lu L.Q., Zhang L., You G.Y. (2012): Effect of nitrogen application patterns on yield and grain-filling of summer maize. Chinese Journal of EcoAgriculture, 20: 1594-1598. Go to original source...

    This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY NC 4.0), which permits non-comercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original publication is properly cited. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.


    Return to the content