1.Research Institute of Agricultural Resources and Environment,Jilin Academy of Agricultural Science (Northeast Agricultural Research Center of China)/Northeast Key Laboratory of Crop Physiology,Ecology and Cultivation,Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs,Changchun 130033,China
2.Institute of Straw Return Application Technology,Jilin Province Academy of Agricultural Machinery,Changchun 130022,China
To explore the effects of conservation tillage on soil quality and maize yield in black soil farmland, a continuous 8-year field tillage positioning experiment was conducted. The study examined the impacts of conventional tillage (CT), straw mulching with no-tillage (NTS), straw mulching with subsoiling tillage (STS), and straw incorporation with harrowing tillage (HTS) on the physical, chemical, and biological properties of the soil in the 0-40 cm layer, as well as on maize lodging resistance, yield, and its contributing factors. The results indicated that, compared with CT, NTS, STS, and HTS treatments significantly increased the field capacity, saturated moisture content, organic carbon, total nitrogen, total phosphorus, alkaline-hydrolyzable nitrogen, available phosphorus content, β-glucosidase, N-acetyl-glucosaminidase, lignin peroxidase, polyphenol oxidase activity, and microbial biomass nitrogen in the 0-40 cm soil layer (P<0.05). Moreover, NTS and STS treatments significantly reduced soil bulk density and three-phase R value(P<0.05), and enhanced the geometric mean diameter and microbial biomass phosphorus content. NTS, STS, and HTS all significantly improved the soil quality index in the 0-40 cm layer compared to CT(P<0.05), with the first two enhancing it from the physical, chemical, and biological dimensions, while the latter primarily increased from two dimensions of soil chemistry and biology. Both STS and HTS significantly reduced spike height, increased stem thickness and bending strength, thereby improving the lodging resistance index of the stem compared to CT (P<0.05). STS significantly increased 100 grain weight and maize yield in wet years compared to CT and NTS, with the interannual average maize yield improving by 7.10% to 11.86% compared to other treatments (P<0.05). Correlation analysis and redundancy analysis revealed that the quality index of physical and chemical indicators in the 20-40 cm layer and the quality index of biological indicators in the 0-10 cm layer were important factors influencing yield and its components. In conclusion, in the southern black soil area of the Songnen Plain, straw mulching with subsoiling tillage is a conservation tillage technology model that can achieve multidimensional coordinated optimization of black soil farmland quality and enhance maize yield.
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