Analysis of Water Consumption in Summer Maize Field under Planting Pattern of Ridge-Furrow with Plastic Film Mulching

Ridge-furrow with plastic film mulching planting is commonly used in Northwest China because it can obviously increase yield, but it is still unknown whether the effect of increasing yield is based on consuming more water or not. In order to explore above question, field experiments were conducted in Yangling of Shaanxi Province for three maize seasons with two treatments of ridge-furrow with plastic film mulching planting (RM) and flat field without mulching (NM). The HYDRUS-2D model combined with field experiment was also used to study soil water movement. The simulated results showed that HYDRUS-2D model performed well for simulating the movement of soil water, the coefficient of determination R 2 was between 0.65 and 0.85, the root mean square error (RMSE) was between 0.014 7 cm 3 /cm 3 and 0.021 3 cm 3 /cm 3 , both were in suitable range. Transpiration rate and cumulative transpiration of RM were 18.2% and 15.6% larger than those of NM, respectively. RM decreased evaporation rate and cumulative evaporation by 33.3% and 29.6%, respectively. The value of E/ET (ratio between evaporation and evapotranspiration) was also decreased under RM by 25.5%, but leakage of deep water of RM was 82.5 mm, 46.0 mm and 9.0 mm for three years, which were about 1.3 times as large as that of NM. Summer maize yield and water use efficiency of RM were increased by 5.3% and 15.2%, respectively, and water consumption of field was reduced by 2.8%. The research result showed that RM treatment can change the water consumption structure of crop and make soil water to be more available for crop, because it can increase the maize transpiration and decrease the soil evaporation, thus decrease the water consumption of field, so it was profitable in Northwest China. © 2018, Chinese Society of Agricultural Machinery. All right reserved.