Effects Of Different Mulching Patterns On Soil Moisture And Growth Of Trees In Dryland Apple Orchard

The shortage of water resources is the major limitation in development in the LoessPlateau Dryland Orchard production, how to improve the water use efficiency and use limitedwater resources to increase orchard yield is important to sustain the development of fruitindustry in the region. Qianxian County as the representative orchard in dryland area of LoessPlateau, apple industry has become pillar industry of local improvement of ecologicalenvironment, economic development. But the traditional conventional tillage in local orchardwill form a bare soil surface, so that will not only lead the excess soil water evaporation andloss, and lead the soil fertility to decline year by year, at the same time, because this area isnot irrigated, and water consumption in fruit growth period is large, it is easy to form thedesiccation of deep soil, the soil water shortage has seriously restricted the furtherdevelopment of the apple industry. Practice has proved, the different soil water conservationmeasures were introduced to the production of orchard in Loess Plateau, through themulching and digging the minor groove in the furrow and some other comprehensivemeasures, can significantly reduce the orchard surface soil moisture evaporation, protect theecological environment, obtain good economic, ecological and social benefits.This study is based on the current situation of resource usage in fruit region of the LoessPlateau, considered the most representative apple orchard as the research object, purpose is toeffectively inhibit the orchard soil moisture evaporation, increase water use efficiency in thegrowth period of apple tree, through different mulching methods such as using the ordinaryfilm, liquid film, ground fabric, maize stalk and covered with film in the ridge+covered withmaize stalk in the furrow, and the usage of irrigation, by irrigating the soil surface layer（0-20cm）, root concentration layer （0-50cm） and deep soil layer （0-80cm） to make the soilmoisture content reach field capacity, then, covering the plastic film, to analyse soil moisture,temperature, yield and water use efficiency in apple orchard, and to study the effects ofdifferent coverage and different soil layers after irrigation with black plastic film mulching onwater conservation, temperature, trees growth and yield of dryland apple orchard in LoessPlateau. In order to provide theoretical basis and technical support for the water conservationtillage in orchard. The main results were as follows: （1） The treatment which used the pattern-covered with film in the ridge+covered withmaize stalk in the furrow could effectively improve the water status of the orchard, with therain collection, storage, preservation of soil moisture. The effects of covered with film in theridge+covered with maize stalk in the furrow and covered with maize stalk in flat were mostobvious among different covering. Plastic film mulching in spring could improve soiltemperature above25cm, covered with maize stalk in summer could reduce soil temperatureabove25cm, which could make the soil temperature suitable for the growth of fruit tree inspring and summer.（2） In4kinds of covering, the treatment which used the pattern-covered with film in theridge+covered with maize stalk in the furrow, its yield and water use efficiency were boththe highest, reached33982.7kg·hm^-2and62.6kg·hm^-2·mm-1respectively, followed by theground fabric mulching and maize stalk mulching, yield and water use efficiency reached32947.9and31958.0kg·hm^-2,48.6and52.7kg·hm^-2·mm-1respectively, liquid film was slightlyhigher than the control, yield and water use efficiency were28310.8kg·hm^-2and51.4kg·hm^-2·mm-1respectively, control was the lowest, yield and water use efficiency were23720.4kg·hm^-2and38.7kg·hm^-2·mm-1respectively.（3） The results-effects of different mulching cultivation on soil moisture, temperature andyield showed that, the pattern-covered with film in the ridge+covered with maize stalk in thefurrow was the efficient cultivation in dryland apple orchard.（4） With the condition of film mulching cultivation, the volume of irrigation in rootconcentration layer-17.6m³/667m², could improve water use efficiency on the premise ofsustaining the yield of the apple orchard.