Gansu Provincial Key Lab of AridLand Crop Science, Gansu Agricultural University, Lanzhou, 730070, China.
College of Plant Sciences, Tarim University, Xinjiang, 843300, China.
Sci Rep. 2018 Jul 12;8(1):10494. doi: 10.1038/s41598-018-28612-6.
In arid areas, water shortage is threating agricultural sustainability, and strip-intercropping may serve as a strategy to alleviate the challenge. Here we show that strip-intercropping enhances the spatial distributions of soil water across the 0-110 cm rooting zones, improves the coordination of soil water sharing during the co-growth period, and provides compensatory effect for available soil water. In a three-year (2009-2011) experiment, shorter-season pea (Pisum sativum L.) was sown in alternate strips with longer-season maize (Zea mays L.) without or with an artificially-inserted root barrier (a solid plastic sheet) between the strips. The intercropped pea used soil water mostly in the top 20-cm layers, whereas maize plants were able to absorb water from deeper-layers of the neighboring pea strips. After pea harvest, the intercropped maize obtained compensatory soil water from the pea strips. The pea-maize intercropping without the root barrier increased grain yield by 25% and enhanced water use efficiency by 24% compared with the intercropping with the root barrier. The improvement in crop yield and water use efficiency was partly attributable to the coordinated soil water sharing between the inter-strips and the compensatory effect from the early-maturing pea to the late-maturing maize.
在干旱地区，水资源短缺威胁着农业的可持续性，而条带间作可能是缓解这一挑战的一种策略。在这里，我们表明，条带间作对 0-110cm 根系范围内的土壤水分空间分布有增强作用，改善了共生期间土壤水分的协同共享，并为有效土壤水分提供了补偿效应。在一个为期三年（2009-2011 年）的实验中，在条带之间交替播种短季豌豆（Pisum sativum L.）和长季玉米（Zea mays L.），条带之间没有或插入了人工根障（固体塑料片）。间作豌豆主要利用上层 20cm 范围内的土壤水分，而玉米植株能够从邻近豌豆条带的更深层吸收水分。豌豆收获后，间作玉米从豌豆条带中获得了补偿性土壤水分。与有根障的间作相比，无根障的豌豆-玉米间作可使粮食产量提高 25%，水分利用效率提高 24%。作物产量和水分利用效率的提高部分归因于条带间的土壤水分协同共享以及早熟豌豆对晚熟玉米的补偿效应。
