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Improving the annual yield of a wheat and maize system through irrigation at the maize sowing stage †
Author(s) -
Feng Yupeng,
Yang Meng,
Shang Mengfei,
Jia Hao,
Chu Qingquan,
Chen Fu
Publication year - 2018
Publication title -
irrigation and drainage
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.421
H-Index - 38
eISSN - 1531-0361
pISSN - 1531-0353
DOI - 10.1002/ird.2280
Subject(s) - sowing , irrigation , agronomy , yield (engineering) , crop , irrigation scheduling , water consumption , growing season , environmental science , crop coefficient , water use , zea mays , mathematics , crop yield , winter wheat , biology , physics , environmental engineering , thermodynamics
To achieve high‐yielding and eco‐friendly crop production, it is crucial to identify the critical water requirement period of crops, especially in annual crop production systems. A 2‐year experiment was established to study the annual yield, total water consumption and water productivity (WP) of a winter wheat ( Triticum aestivum L.) and summer maize ( Zea mays L.) system in the Huang‐Huai‐Hai Plain. The results showed that the annual yield of this crop system increased with irrigation frequency and was highest when irrigation was applied three times in the wheat season and once in the maize season (W 3 M 1 ), though there was no significant difference in annual yield among W 2 M 1 , W 3 M 1 and W 4 M 1 . And there is no evidence in this paper that irrigation scheduling substantially affects WP. W 2 M 1 had the second highest annual yield (18.7 t ha −1 in 2013–2014 and 19.9 ha −1 in 2014–2015) with a low amount of irrigation compared with W 3 M 1 and W 4 M 1 . The highest total water consumption was measured in W 3 M 1 and reached 812 and 873 mm in the first and second years, respectively. Irrigation during the summer maize sowing stage is essential for improving the annual yield and WP. © 2018 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.