Effect of Different Film Mulchings on Yield and Water Use Efficiency of Summer Maize
This paper investigated the feasibility of replacing ordinary plastic film in summer maize cultivation by degradable films in attempts to resolved the"white pollution"often seen in agricultural production.We exam-ined four mulchings:transparent plastic film(M1),transparent degradable film(M2),and black degradable film (M3),and the control was without mulching(CK).In each treatment,we measured soil moisture,soil water stor-age,grain yield,water consumption and water use efficiency(WUE).The results revealed that the soil moisture and the soil water storage in 0~30 cm of soil improved significantly under mulching,and that there was no sig-nificant difference in water retention in soils under mulching with the two degradable films.However,water re-tention in soil mulched with degradable films is lower than that mulched with the ordinary transparent film.Un-der mulching with ordinary plastic film and the black and the transparent degraded plastic films the water con-sumption was reduced by 1.5%,3.7%,1.0% respectively,compared with the CK.The grain yield under the black degradable film mulching significantly increased by 14.8% and the water use efficiency by 15.4%.However,the mulching with the transparent degradable film and transparent plastic film led to a decrease in yield by 9.5% and 19.7%,respectively,and the water use efficiency by 11.5% and 19.2%,respectively.This study indicated that all three film mulchings increased the soil moisture in 0~30 cm,but only did the black degradable film mulching increase yield.Thus,film selection in mulching should consider environment and cultivation technology.
degradable filmsoil moisturewater use efficiencyyieldmaize