IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jsusta/v13y2021i2p610-d478023.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Mulching Measures Improve Soil Moisture in Rain-Fed Jujube ( Ziziphus jujuba Mill.) Orchards in the Loess Hilly Region of China

Author

Listed:
  • Min Tang

    (College of Hydraulic Science and Engineering, Yangzhou University, Yangzhou 225009, China
    Institute of Water-saving Agriculture in Arid Areas of China, Northwest Agriculture and Forestry University, Yangling 712100, China)

  • Hongchen Li

    (School of Resources and Environmental Engineering, Ludong University, Yantai 264025, China)

  • Chao Zhang

    (College of Hydraulic Science and Engineering, Yangzhou University, Yangzhou 225009, China)

  • Xining Zhao

    (Institute of Water-saving Agriculture in Arid Areas of China, Northwest Agriculture and Forestry University, Yangling 712100, China)

  • Xiaodong Gao

    (Institute of Water-saving Agriculture in Arid Areas of China, Northwest Agriculture and Forestry University, Yangling 712100, China)

  • Pute Wu

    (Institute of Water-saving Agriculture in Arid Areas of China, Northwest Agriculture and Forestry University, Yangling 712100, China)

Abstract

Water shortage is the main bottleneck restricting the sustainable development of rain-fed jujube ( Ziziphus jujuba Mill.) orchards in the loess hilly region of China. Given the effect of mulching on soil moisture conservation, straw mulching (SM) and jujube branch mulching (BM) were applied to a rain-fed jujube orchard in this study. Soil moisture dynamics, soil water storage, water consumption, and soil moisture attenuation after typical rainfall under SM, BM, and clean tillage (CT) were studied. The results showed the following: (1) The 0–60 cm soil layer was the seasonal fluctuation layer of soil moisture under SM, BM, and CT in both the normal precipitation year and the dry year studied. The moisture contents of the 0–60, 60–160, and 160–280 cm soil layers under SM and BM were higher than that under CT in the three experimental years studied, and SM showed the most obvious effect of increasing soil moisture. (2) SM and BM showed a significant soil water storage effect in all of the jujube growth stages, and SM had a better water storage effect than BM. (3) SM reduced the amount of water consumption by 94.3, 60.8, and 121.3 mm compared to CT in the whole jujube growth period in 2014, 2015, and 2016, respectively. The amount of water consumption of BM decreased by 34.8 and 31.0 mm compared to that of CT in the whole growth period in 2014 and 2015, respectively. (4) CT had the maximum soil moisture loss rate under continuous drought after rainfall. The soil moisture loss rate of CT was above 37.3% on the eleventh day after typical rainfall in 2014, 2015, and 2016. With the extension of drought, the soil moisture loss rate under SM increased slowly. This study suggests that SM is the best mulching measure for rain-fed jujube orchards, and pruned jujube branches can also be used for in situ mulching to obtain a certain moisture conservation effect.

Suggested Citation

  • Min Tang & Hongchen Li & Chao Zhang & Xining Zhao & Xiaodong Gao & Pute Wu, 2021. "Mulching Measures Improve Soil Moisture in Rain-Fed Jujube ( Ziziphus jujuba Mill.) Orchards in the Loess Hilly Region of China," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(2), pages 1-13, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:13:y:2021:i:2:p:610-:d:478023
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/13/2/610/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/13/2/610/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Ojasvi, P. R. & Goyal, R. K. & Gupta, J. P., 1999. "The micro-catchment water harvesting technique for the plantation of jujube (Zizyphus mauritiana) in an agroforestry system under arid conditions," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 41(3), pages 139-147, August.
    2. Chen, Dianyu & Wang, Youke & Liu, Shouyang & Wei, Xinguang & Wang, Xing, 2014. "Response of relative sap flow to meteorological factors under different soil moisture conditions in rainfed jujube (Ziziphus jujuba Mill.) plantations in semiarid Northwest China," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 136(C), pages 23-33.
    3. Saglam, Mustafa & Sintim, Henry Y. & Bary, Andy I. & Miles, Carol A. & Ghimire, Shuresh & Inglis, Debra A. & Flury, Markus, 2017. "Modeling the effect of biodegradable paper and plastic mulch on soil moisture dynamics," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 193(C), pages 240-250.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Tadayon, Mohammad Saeed & Hosseini, Seyed Mashaallah, 2022. "Shade net and mulching measures for improving soil and plant water status of fig trees under rainfed conditions," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 271(C).
    2. Tamara Fukalova Fukalova & María Dolores García-Martínez & Patricia Esteve Ciudad & María Dolores Raigón Jiménez, 2023. "The Effects of Low-Input (Wild and Organic Farming) Conditions on the Nutritional Profile of Ziziphus jujuba Mill. Fruits from the Valencian Mediterranean," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(19), pages 1-17, October.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Jovanovic, N. & Pereira, L.S. & Paredes, P. & Pôças, I. & Cantore, V. & Todorovic, M., 2020. "A review of strategies, methods and technologies to reduce non-beneficial consumptive water use on farms considering the FAO56 methods," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 239(C).
    2. Zhao, Ying & Zhai, Xiafei & Wang, Zhaohui & Li, Huijie & Jiang, Rui & Lee Hill, Robert & Si, Bing & Hao, Feng, 2018. "Simulation of soil water and heat flow in ridge cultivation with plastic film mulching system on the Chinese Loess Plateau," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 202(C), pages 99-112.
    3. Braunack, Michael V. & Zaja, Adriana & Tam, Kang & Filipović, Lana & Filipović, Vilim & Wang, Yusong & Bristow, Keith L., 2020. "A Sprayable Biodegradable Polymer Membrane (SBPM) technology: Effect of band width and application rate on water conservation and seedling emergence," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 230(C).
    4. Yin, Tao & Yao, Zhipeng & Yan, Changrong & Liu, Qi & Ding, Xiaodong & He, Wenqing, 2023. "Maize yield reduction is more strongly related to soil moisture fluctuation than soil temperature change under biodegradable film vs plastic film mulching in a semi-arid region of northern China," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 287(C).
    5. Chen, Dianyu & Hu, Xiaotao & Duan, Xingwu & Yang, Daxin & Wang, Youke & Wang, Xing & Saifullah, Muhammad, 2024. "Improving canopy transpiration model performance by considering concurrent hot and dry conditions," Agricultural Systems, Elsevier, vol. 217(C).
    6. Yin, Minhua & Li, Yuannong & Fang, Heng & Chen, Pengpeng, 2019. "Biodegradable mulching film with an optimum degradation rate improves soil environment and enhances maize growth," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 216(C), pages 127-137.
    7. Yu, Qihua & Kang, Shaozhong & Zhang, Lu & Hu, Shunjun & Li, Yunfeng & Parsons, David, 2023. "Incorporating new functions into the WAVES model, to better simulate cotton production under film mulching and severe salinity," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 288(C).
    8. Abu-Zreig, Majed & Tamimi, Abdullah, 2011. "Field evaluation of sand-ditch water harvesting technique in Jordan," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 98(8), pages 1291-1296, May.
    9. Chen, Ning & Li, Xianyue & Šimůnek, Jirí & Shi, Haibin & Ding, Zongjiang & Peng, Zunyuan, 2019. "Evaluating the effects of biodegradable film mulching on soil water dynamics in a drip-irrigated field," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 226(C).
    10. Xing Wang & Hailong Sun & Changming Tan & Xiaowen Wang & Min Xia, 2021. "Effects of Film Mulching on Plant Growth and Nutrients in Artificial Soil: A Case Study on High Altitude Slopes," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(19), pages 1-15, October.
    11. He, Xue-Feng & Cao, Huhua & Li, Feng-Min, 2007. "Econometric analysis of the determinants of adoption of rainwater harvesting and supplementary irrigation technology (RHSIT) in the semiarid Loess Plateau of China," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 89(3), pages 243-250, May.
    12. Ouyang, Lei & Wu, Jin & Zhao, Ping & Li, Yanqiong & Zhu, Liwei & Ni, Guangyan & Rao, Xingquan, 2021. "Consumption of precipitation by evapotranspiration indicates potential drought for broadleaved and coniferous plantations in hilly lands of South China," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 252(C).
    13. Yuan, Tian & Fengmin, Li & Puhai, Liu, 2003. "Economic analysis of rainwater harvesting and irrigation methods, with an example from China," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 60(3), pages 217-226, May.
    14. Welderufael, W.A. & Le Roux, P.A.L. & Hensley, M., 2008. "Quantifying rainfall-runoff relationships on the Dera Calcic Fluvic Regosol ecotope in Ethiopia," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 95(11), pages 1223-1232, November.
    15. Yang, Yonghui & Ding, Jinli & Zhang, Yunhong & Wu, Jicheng & Zhang, Jiemei & Pan, Xiaoying & Gao, Cuimin & Wang, Yue & He, Fang, 2018. "Effects of tillage and mulching measures on soil moisture and temperature, photosynthetic characteristics and yield of winter wheat," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 201(C), pages 299-308.
    16. Wang, Di & Wang, Li, 2017. "Dynamics of evapotranspiration partitioning for apple trees of different ages in a semiarid region of northwest China," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 191(C), pages 1-15.
    17. Pan, Daili & Song, Yaqian & Dyck, Miles & Gao, Xiaodong & Wu, Pute & Zhao, Xining, 2017. "Effect of plant cover type on soil water budget and tree photosynthesis in jujube orchards," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 184(C), pages 135-144.
    18. Li, X.-Y. & Zhao, W.-W. & Song, Y.-X. & Wang, W. & Zhang, X.-Y., 2008. "Rainfall harvesting on slopes using contour furrows with plastic-covered transverse ridges for growing Caragana korshinskii in the semiarid region of China," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 95(5), pages 539-544, May.
    19. Jiang, Xuelian & Kang, Shaozhong & Li, Fusheng & Du, Taisheng & Tong, Ling & Comas, Louise, 2016. "Evapotranspiration partitioning and variation of sap flow in female and male parents of maize for hybrid seed production in arid region," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 176(C), pages 132-141.
    20. Chen, Dianyu & Wang, Xing & Liu, Shouyang & Wang, Youke & Gao, Zhiyong & Zhang, Linlin & Wei, Xinguang & Wei, Xindong, 2015. "Using Bayesian analysis to compare the performance of three evapotranspiration models for rainfed jujube (Ziziphus jujuba Mill.) plantations in the Loess Plateau," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 159(C), pages 341-357.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:13:y:2021:i:2:p:610-:d:478023. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.