Study On High Efficient Water-Saving Technology Of Hill Multi-Stem Planting For Intercropping Cereal Crops And Melons In ARid Land

Moisture is the primary limitation factor for production of dry farming. China with large area of arid land is in severe shortage of water resources. Establishment of water-saving dry fanning is inevitable choice for sustainable development of agriculture in our country. The traditional measures for dry farming mainly includes deep plowing, harrowing and covering by straws in order to maintain moisture in the soil, and these dry farming techniques have been the embodiment of agricultural civilization in China in the past thousands of years. As an important component of dry farming, it has greatly promoted the development of dryland agriculture in our country. But the traditional technology can't meet the requirement for development of modern agriculture. The modern arid land agriculture need to turn the traditional way into high-effectively water-saving agriculture and more artificial measures should be taken to gain more production. The trial adopted the planting patterns of intercropping maize and watermelons by the way of dense planting at thin holes. That means to enlarge the distance between holes with seeding multi-plant (usually 4 plants) of maize and watermelons per hole. Such planting pattern and field distribution of crops has not only guaranteed the number of plant per mu and reduced the one of holes planted but also makes convenient for hole-irrigation and drip-irrigation. It also simplified the irrigation facilities and then made it more feasible for supplement irrigation. The results showed that the high efficient water-saving technique of hill multi-stem planting allow to change traditional keeping moisture dry farming into water-saving irrigation dry farming, thus raising the governable power for artificial manipulation in dry farming.The intercropping of maize and watermelon is an active measure to solve the contradictions between cereal crops and economic crops in terms of space distribution. By the combination of dense-planting at thin-hole with intercropping maize and watermelons, the present experiment mainly studied the effects of different planting patterns consisting of large hole spacing (4 maize/watermelon plants per hole), including field moisture utilization, environment characteristics, ventilation and the water-saving technical maneuverability. The results showed the facts that:(1) Adoption the high effective water-saving technology with dense-planting at thin-holein dryland agricultural production can effectively utilize the rain collected for irrigation to regulate the unbalanced rainfall during the rainy season in order to achieve the purpose of making efficient use of the rainfall.(2) Using the technology it can improve the micro circulation of the soil and then to increase the seedling emerged rate and survival rate. Under the circumstances of soil moisture stress that the water capacity is below 10% in the plow payer of soils, the survival rate can be over 95%.(3) The dense-planting at thin-hole technology has more drought tolerance. The properties of ventilation and sunshine permeability in crop population have greatly improved. And the physiology characteristics of photosynthesis and transpiration are obviously better than those of the control.(4) Under the experimental conditions in this study, the combination with highest output was MOW4P4500 with 56115 kg/hm of its yield, which was 179.35% more than the control. The combination with best morphological and physiological indexes was MIM3P4500.(5) Under the demonstration test conditions, the dense-planting at thin-hole technology provided 5600 kg of an additional water per mu for irrigation. And compared with conventional single planting pattern, the intercropping of maize and watermelon had more an increased income of 701 yuan and 317 yuan than that of the regular maize or watermelon plantation, respectively.In general, hill multi-stem planting for intercropping cereal crops and melons is a new and practical water-saving technology for arid land agricultural production. It should be extended with great effort due to its reliable target and good maneuverability.