The applicability of water-permeable plastic film and biodegradable film as alternatives to polyethylene film in crops on the Loess Plateau

Wenjia Yang, Naitong Yan, Jiali Zhang, Jiakun Yan, Dengke Ma, Shiwen Wang and Lina Yin

Agricultural Water Management, 2022, vol. 274, issue C

Abstract: Polyethylene film (PEF) cannot retain “ineffective precipitation” (< 10 mm) in drylands, and PEF residues in farmland have detrimental impacts on soil health. Thus, water-permeable plastic film (WPF) that can retain ineffective precipitation and biodegradable film (BF) that can be degraded were developed. However, the yield performance using WPF and BF varied a lot in different crops and experimental sites as compared with PEF. Here, we evaluated the applicability of WPF and BF as alternatives to PEF on millet, sorghum and corn with different growth periods on the northern Loess Plateau of China. Our results showed that, compared with PEF, ineffective precipitation was successfully preserved and soil water storage was 13–19 mm higher under WPF. Furthermore, the activities of urease, alkaline phosphatase, catalase, and contents of soil NO3––N, available phosphorus were also higher under WPF, due to the improved soil water conditions and mitigated soil temperature. Consequently, the yields of the three crops were 5–18% higher under WPF. The yield under BF did not decrease in millet, while it was 8–15% lower in sorghum and corn than that under PEF. When a large area of BF cracks appeared, sorghum and corn were in the middle growth period with a low leaf area index (LAI), and the rainy season did not come yet; but for millet, it coincided with the rainy season in its late growth period with a high LAI. Therefore, compared with PEF, soil water storage was 9–30 mm lower under BF in sorghum and corn during the middle growth stage, which resulted in lower soil enzyme activities and nutrient contents. In conclusion, as an alternative to PEF, WPF application is favorable in areas with high ineffective precipitation, and BF application is not suitable for crops with long growth period and low LAI.

Keywords: Soil water; Soil nutrients; Soil temperature; Crop yield; Dryland (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0378377422004991
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:agiwat:v:274:y:2022:i:c:s0378377422004991

DOI: 10.1016/j.agwat.2022.107952

Access Statistics for this article

Agricultural Water Management is currently edited by B.E. Clothier, W. Dierickx, J. Oster and D. Wichelns

More articles in Agricultural Water Management from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().