Comparison of water-saving potential of fallow and crop change with high water-use winter-wheat – summer-maize rotation

A land fallow system (LFS) designed to adjust the winter-wheat summer-maize cropping system to fallow summer-maize was introduced in Hebei Province to alleviate groundwater depletion in the region. However, some of the water saved was lost through evaporation from bare soil and transpiration by weeds. So far, no measurement has been done in the region to address this non-productive water loss, thereby limiting the water-saving potential of the introduced LFS. Furthermore, the reduction in crop production under the summer-maize – fallow system threatens food security. The objective of this study was to determine which practice is effective to keep soil water during fallow and the exact water-saving potential of different cropping system in the region. Firstly, field experiments were conducted under various soil surface management systems — including plastic mulching (PM), straw mulching (SM), shallow tillage (ST) and weed control (WC). The effects of saving water, controlling weeds and managing nutrients were analyzed under the various surface soil management methods. The results showed that compared with the control (no soil surface management, CK), 177, 64.7, 71.0 and 25.0 mm of water was saved respectively under PM, SM, WC and ST surface soil management methods in 2019–2020. The effect of weed control decreased in the order of PM > WC > SM > ST. While PM significantly increased soil nutrient in all the treatments, the others showed slight but insignificant increases. Secondly, the precise water-use of each of the cropping systems was determined using large lysimeters. The analysis showed that compared with the wheat-maize system, 60–100 mm of water was saved under alternating wheat-soybean, wheat-millet, mung bean – fresh edible maize, spring sweet potato cropping systems. The results were key for technical guide in developing future cultivation adjustment policies.