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Rainfall concentration for increasing corn production under semiarid climate

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  • Ren, Xiaolong
  • Jia, Zhikuan
  • Chen, Xiaoli

Abstract

The ridge and furrow farming of rainfall concentration (RC) system is being promoted to increase water availability to crops for improving and stabilizing agricultural production in the semiarid Loess region of northwest China. In the system, plastic-covered ridges serve as rainfall harvesting zones and furrows serve as planting zones. In recent years, however, the current RC practices are still confined to rural family units for very limited supplemental irrigation purposes. To adopt this system for large-scale use in the semiarid region and bring it into full play, it is necessary to test the befitting rainfall range for RC farming. A field study (using corn as an indicator crop) combined with rainfall simulation was designed to determine the effects of RC practices on soil water content, crop yield and water use efficiency (WUE) under three rainfall levels (230 mm, 340 mm and 440 mm) during the growing seasons of 2006 and 2007. The results indicated that with the rainfalls ranging within 230-440 mm, RC system can increase soil water content in 0-100 cm and temperature conditions in the topsoil (0-10 cm) in furrows by 5-12% and 0.7-1 °C, respectively. The corn seedlings emerged 1-2 days earlier, the developmental stages generally occurred earlier, and the plant height and total dry matter all significantly increased (P

Suggested Citation

  • Ren, Xiaolong & Jia, Zhikuan & Chen, Xiaoli, 2008. "Rainfall concentration for increasing corn production under semiarid climate," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 95(12), pages 1293-1302, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:agiwat:v:95:y:2008:i:12:p:1293-1302
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    References listed on IDEAS

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