Belt Uniform Sowing Pattern Boosts Yield of Different Winter Wheat Cultivars in Southwest China

Ting Chen, Yonghe Zhu, Rui Dong, Minjian Ren, Jin He and Fengmin Li
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Ting Chen: The Key Laboratory of Plant Resource Conservation and Germplasm Innovation in Mountainous Region (Ministry of Education), College of Agriculture, Guizhou University, Guiyang 550025, China
Yonghe Zhu: College of Agriculture, Nanjing Agricultural University, Nanjing 210095, China
Rui Dong: College of Zoology, Guizhou University, Guiyang 550025, China
Minjian Ren: The Key Laboratory of Plant Resource Conservation and Germplasm Innovation in Mountainous Region (Ministry of Education), College of Agriculture, Guizhou University, Guiyang 550025, China
Jin He: The Key Laboratory of Plant Resource Conservation and Germplasm Innovation in Mountainous Region (Ministry of Education), College of Agriculture, Guizhou University, Guiyang 550025, China
Fengmin Li: College of Agriculture, Nanjing Agricultural University, Nanjing 210095, China

Agriculture, 2021, vol. 11, issue 11, 1-11

Abstract: The relationship between the sowing patterns and yield performance is a valuable topic for food security. In this study, a novel belt uniform (BU) sowing pattern was reported, and a field experiment with four winter wheat cultivars was carried out over three consecutive growing seasons to compare the dry matter accumulation, harvest index (HI), grain yield and yield components under BU and line and dense (LD) sowing patterns [BU sowing with narrow (15 cm) spacing; BU sowing with wide (20 cm) spacing; LD sowing with wide (33.3 cm) row spacing; LD sowing with narrow (16.6 cm) row spacing]. Four cultivars produced a higher mean grain yield (GY), above-ground biomass (AGB) and spike number (SN) per m 2 under the BU sowing patterns than the LD sowing patterns in all three growing seasons. However, yield stability under the BU sowing patterns did not increase with the improved grain yield. The HI did not change with sowing patterns, and the contribution of above-ground biomass to grain yield (84%) was more than 5-fold higher than that of HI (16%). Principal component and correlation analyses indicated that the grain yield was positively correlated with the aboveground biomass and SN, while the HI and 1000-grain weight were not correlated with grain yield. We concluded that (1) the novel BU sowing patterns achieved a higher yield potential in winter wheat but did not further improve yield stability; (2) increasing the dry matter accumulation without changing the HI drove improvements in the SN and grain number per spike, thus increasing grain yield.

Keywords: sowing pattern; winter wheat; biomass; grain yield; harvest index (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q1 Q10 Q11 Q12 Q13 Q14 Q15 Q16 Q17 Q18 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
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