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Germination and growth of corn submitted to sowing and cultivation management by subsurface drip irrigation in the North China Plain

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Abstract

The difficulty of crop germination in drought-prone areas during the sowing period is a worldwide problem for subsurface drip irrigation (SDI). Alternate row/bed planting (AP), in which the corn seeds were planted beneath a furrow, was applied to improve the corn germination and yield in Beijing, the North China Plain. Field experiments were conducted to assess the impacts of three furrow depths (FDs), 0 cm (H0), 10 cm (H10) and 15 cm (H15), and two cultivation management practices, backfilling the furrow after germination (BF) and not (NBF), on soil water content and temperature, corn germination and yield by SDI in 2018 and 2019. The results showed that the soil water content around the seeds (θseed) increased with increasing FD, while the soil temperature decreased with increasing FD. BF slightly increased the soil temperature, with an average growing degree days of 26–34 ℃ at a depth of 0–25 cm. The seed germination time was shortened by 3–5 days, and the emergence rate was improved following the increase in FD. The H15 treatment achieved the maximum emergence rate of 91.8% on average for two years, which was 7–17% higher than those of the H0 and H10 treatments. A Binary quadratic regression equation was adopted to fit the response of the emergence rate to θseed after preemergence irrigation and the average soil temperature during the period from sowing to the emergence stage (STseedVE). The fitting equation indicated that the θseed of 28–30% and the STseedVE of 25–27.5 ℃ together could give an emergence rate over 90% by SDI. The H15-BF treatment obtained the highest grain yield of 13.1 Mg ha−1 on average for 2 years, which was 5–24% higher than those of the other treatments. The yield between H15-NBF and H15-BF showed an insignificant difference. There were statistically significant (p < 0.05) effects of FD on the emergence rate and grain yield. In conclusion, the model of AP with an FD of 15 cm is suitable for SDI corn in the North China Plain.

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All the data presented in the manuscript have been obtained from authors’ experiments.

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Acknowledgements

We are grateful to the research grants from the Research and Development Support Program of China Institute of Water Resources and Hydropower Research (ID0145B042021), the National Science Foundation of China (51909276 and 51979288), and the Fundamental Research Program of Shanxi Province, China (20210302124248). The study was also supported by the Agricultural Science and Technology Innovation Program (No 2021-2025).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. State Key Laboratory of Simulation and Regulation of Water Cycle in River Basin, China Institute of Water Resources and Hydropower Research, Beijing, 100048, China

    Yan Mo, Yanqun Zhang, Shihong Gong & Xiaoyan Gao

  2. College of Water Resources Science and Engineering, Taiyuan University of Technology, Taiyuan, 030024, China

    Dan Wang

  3. Institute of Environment and Sustainable Development in Agriculture, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Beijing, 100081, China

    Jiandong Wang

  4. College of Water Resources and Civil Engineering, China Agriculture University, Beijing, 100083, China

    Guangyong Li

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  1. Yan Mo
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Contributions

Mo, Y. wrote the main manuscript text, Zhang, Y. prepared figures 1-3, Wang, D. prepared figures 4-6, Wang, J. prepared Tables 1-2, Gao, X. prepared Tables 3-4, Gong, S. and Li, G. modified the manuscript. All authors reviewed the manuscript.

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Correspondence to Dan Wang or Jiandong Wang.

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Mo, Y., Zhang, Y., Wang, D. et al. Germination and growth of corn submitted to sowing and cultivation management by subsurface drip irrigation in the North China Plain. Irrig Sci (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00271-023-00900-8

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