Title Mulching type-induced soil moisture and temperature regimes and water use efficiency of soybean under rain-fed condition in central Japan( 本文(Fulltext) )
Author(s) KADER, Mohammad Abdul; SENGE, Masateru; MOJID, Mohammad Abdul; NAKAMURA, Kimihito
Citation [International Soil and Water Conservation Research] vol.[5]
no.[4] p.[302]-[308]
Issue Date 2017
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c2017 International Research and Training Center on Erosion and Sedimentation and China Water and Power Press Production and Hosting by Elsevier B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license
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URL http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.12099/76282
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H O S T E D B Y
Original Research Article
Mulching type-induced soil moisture and temperature regimes and water use ef fi ciency of soybean under rain-fed condition in central Japan
Mohammad Abdul Kader
a,n, Masateru Senge
b, Mohammad Abdul Mojid
c, Kimihito Nakamura
daRural Development Academy (RDA), Bogra-5842, Bangladesh
bFaculty of Applied Biological Sciences, Gifu University, 1-1 Yanagido, Gifu City 501-1112, Japan
cDepartment of Irrigation and Water Management, Bangladesh Agricultural University, Mymensingh-2202, Bangladesh
dGraduate School of Agriculture, Kyoto University, Kitashirakawa Oiwake-cho, Sakyo Ward, Kyoto 606-8502, Japan
a r t i c l e i n f o
Article history:
Received 22 April 2017 Received in revised form 24 June 2017
Accepted 21 August 2017 Available online 7 September 2017 Keywords:
Mulching
Soil-water consumption Soil temperature Water use efficiency
a b s t r a c t
Soybean (Glycine max) is a high water-demand crop and grown under moderate temperature in Japan. To protect the crop from hot summer and to utilize rainfall for its cultivation, selection of appropriate mulching material(s) is crucial. For optimum production of the crop, soil moisture and temperature regimes as well as water use efficiency (WUE) of the crop were investigated under straw, grass, paper, plastic and bare soil (control) mulching under rain-fed condition at Gifu university farm in Japan. The mulching treatments, compared to the control, lowered soil temperature by 2°C at 5 cm depth and 0.5°C at 15 and 25 cm depths. The plastic and straw mulching stored the highest quantity of soil moisture at 5 and 15 cm depths; the bare soil stored the lowest quantity. At 25 cm depth, soil-moisture content was the highest under paper mulch but invariable under the other mulches. Plastic mulching reduced eva- poration rate from the soil surface and, consequently, the reduced soil-water consumption (SWC) from the root zone augmented WUE of soybean. The paper mulching, by conserving soil-moisture and re- ducing soil temperature, provided better crop growth attributes, while the plastic mulching improved WUE of green soybean. Therefore, the plastic mulch performed best in reducing soil-water consumption and increasing WUE, while the paper mulch was good for soil-moisture conservation and temperature modification that increased soybean yield.
&2017 International Research and Training Center on Erosion and Sedimentation and China Water and
Power Press. Production and Hosting by Elsevier B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC- ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).
1. Introduction
Vegetable soybean (Glycine max), called‘edamame’, has been popularly cultivated in Japan for many years (Konovsky, Lumpkin,
& McClary, 1994) and, recently, is being used as a fodder crop also (Uchino, Uozumi, Touno, Kawamoto, & Deguchi, 2016). The culti- vation season of soybean varies at different areas in the country (Kono, 1989) depending on the location and weather, which also affect the quality and yield of the crop. The optimum temperature for cultivation of vegetable soybean is less than 25–30°C during day time and more than 10–15°C at night time (Kono, 1989). The growing period of the crop is 90–100 days. The seeding of soybean is done in May and the crop is harvested in August in the northern
region like Hokkaido, whereas March to May is the seeding time and June to August is the harvesting time in the southern region like Kyushu (Kokobun, 1991). In central Japan, the sowing time is May to June when air temperature rises up to 42°C in the hot-dry months. Mean annual rainfall in the area is 1800 mm, 34% of which occurs during June through August, with the highest rainfall (13.7%) in July. For satisfactory yield, it is necessary to conserve soil moisture and modify soil temperature for the cultivation of soy- bean in rain-fed condition. During the hot summer days (July– August), high soil temperature accelerates evaporation at soil surface and reduces soil moisture, with a consequent negative impact on the growth and development of the crop. The negative impacts of high temperature may, however, be minimized by employing mulching with suitable materials (Kader, Senge, Mojid,
& Ito, 2017). The appropriate mulching materials, by controlling soil temperature and conserving soil moisture, can provide sui- table soil microclimate for soybean cultivation in the hot summer.
There are a number of mulching materials in use from organic Contents lists available atScienceDirect
journal homepage:www.elsevier.com/locate/iswcr
International Soil and Water Conservation Research
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.iswcr.2017.08.001
2095-6339/&2017 International Research and Training Center on Erosion and Sedimentation and China Water and Power Press. Production and Hosting by Elsevier B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).
nCorresponding author.
E-mail address:[email protected](M.A. Kader).
Peer review under responsibility of International Research and Training Center on Erosion and Sedimentation and China Water and Power Press.
and inorganic sources. The popular organic mulching materials, such as straw and grass, have been used to retain soil moisture (Chakraborty et al., 2008) by reducing soil-water consumption/loss (Zribi, Aragüés, Medina, & Faci, 2015), maintain soil temperature (Ramakrishna, Tam, Wani, & Long, 2006) and increase crop pro- duction (Siczek & Lipiec, 2011). Organic materials like straw, grass and newspaper are environment friendly, and, after decomposi- tion, add nutrients and organic matter to the soil (Kader, Senge, Mojid, & Ito, 2017). Although, plastic mulch provided better crop yield (Mehan & Singh, 2015), but straw mulch, in many cases, has been recommended for its local availability (Yin et al., 2016). The choice of selection of an appropriate mulching material depends on local climate, cost effectiveness (Wang, Zhao, Wu, & Chen, 2015) and crop feasibility. Cereal straw is a most common organic mulching material that has several benefits, and is better for soil- moisture storage than some other mulching materials (Ji & Unger, 2001). Dry grass and newspaper are inexpensive and, in general, easily available. Farmers can easily collect these materials as an alternate option of rice straw mulching, which is limited due to its unavailability in the field since this is, very often, also used for feeding ruminants or used as biofuel (INFONET-BIOVISION, 2010).
Plastic mulch affects the thermal regime of a soil by altering soil temperature (Arora, Singh, Sidhu, & Thind, 2011; Pramanik, Bandyopadhyay, Bhaduri, Bhattacharyya, & Aggarwal, 2015). It also reduces water loss by preventing surface evaporation (Zribi, Ara- gues, Medina, & Faci, 2015), improves crop-water use efficiency (Almeida, Lima, & Pereira, 2015) and minimizes salt build-up in the crop root zone (Dong, Li, Tang, & Zhang, 2009). The effect of mulching on soil temperature is, however, highly variable; it de- pends on the type of mulch and color of the plasticfilm. Plastic film mulching is more effective for reducing soil-water con- sumption/loss compared to straw mulching. While black plastic mulch increases soil temperature (Ibarra et al., 2012), silver color plastic mulch reduces it (Lamont, 1993). The color of the plastic mulch affects microclimate around the crop by modifying radia- tion budget (absorptivity vs. reflectivity) of the surface (Filipovi
ć
et al., 2016) that can reduce soil-water consumption (Deng, Shan, Zhang, & Turner, 2006) and increase water use efficiency (Kumar &
Dey, 2011). However, use of plastic films for mulching is often limited due to their high cost as well as high cost of their collection and recycling of their residues (Qin, Wang, Guo, Yang, & Oenema, 2015). Selection of appropriate mulching materials for green soy- bean production under rain-fed conditions in hot summer, like at central Japan, is very important. This study investigated the effects of organic and inorganic materials on soil hydrothermal regimes, which influence growth, yield and water-use efficiency of green soybean under rain-fed condition in central Japan.
2. Materials and methods
2.1. Description of study site and treatments
Thefield experiment was conducted at Gifu University farm in Japan (35°27' N and 136°44' E, 12 m above sea level) by culti- vating soybean (Glycine max) during 20 May to 27 August 2015.
The long-term (2000–2014) temperature and precipitation data of the site, collected from a nearby weather station (Gifu WMO sta- tion ID: 47632), are illustrated inFig. 1. The mean air temperature during the soybean growing season increased from 22.0°C in May to 28.4°C in August; the average temperature was 24.7°C. Both the maximum and minimum temperatures were greater in August than in the other months (Table 1). The solar radiation varied from 11.1 to 17.0 MJ m2day1over the crop period. The average re- lative humidity was 80.3%. Total 874.4 mm rainfall, with the maximum quantity in July (during flowering and development
stages of soybean), occurred during the crop season. No irrigation was applied to the crop. The reference evapotranspiration (ETo) was 5.6 mm day1thatfluctuated with the varying air tempera- ture and solar radiation. The experiment was done withfive dif- ferent mulching treatments; a no mulching treatment was used as control. The treatments included three organic mulches – rice straw (0.46 kg m2), dry grass (0.40 kg m2) and shaded news- paper (0.20 kg m2); an inorganic plastic film (silver color) mulching (0.02 mm thick and one layer) and a bare soil (no mulch). The plot size for each mulching treatment was 12.5 m2 (5 m 2.5 m) with a buffer zone of 0.5 m surrounding the treatments.
2.2. Soil physical properties
Undisturbed soil samples were collected from the root zone of soybean: 0–10, 10–20 and 20–30 cm soil profile under each mulching treatment by using core samplers. Texturally, the soil in the study site was loamy sand and loam in the 0–30 cm soil layer.
The moisture contents of the soil samples over field capacity (– 33 kPa) to permanent wilting point (–1500 kPa) were determined by centrifugation (Russel & Richards, 1939) with a Kokusan H-2000B centrifuge machine. The bulk densities of the soils were determined by drying the samples in oven at 105°C for 24 h. Soil organic matter (OM) content was determined by ignition method (Storer, 1984) in which weight loss of the soil samples on ignition was measured. Soil hydraulic properties, bulk density and organic matter content under different mulching treatments are given in Table 2.
2.3. Weather and soil environment
Major climatic data relevant to soybean cultivation: rainfall, soil and air temperatures, relative humidity, solar radiation and soil moisture were measured throughout the period of the experi- ment. Reference evapotranspiration, ETo, was estimated using climatic data by Penman-Monteith equation (Allen, Pereira, Raes,
& Smith, 1998). The depth of main root zone of crop was less than 30 cm from field observation. The volumetric soil-moisture con- tent and soil temperature were measured at three depths (5, 15 and 25 cm) under each mulching treatment at 1-h interval by employing two different types of probes. One probe type consisted of two-rod TDR probes (CS615, Campbell Scientific, Inc., USA) connected to a datalogger (CR10X, Campbell Scientific, Inc., USA).
The other type, a simultaneous soil-moisture and temperature measurement system, consisted of 5TM and Em50 probes (Deca- gon Devices, Inc., USA). Additionally, soil temperatures were re- corded with TMC20-HD sensors connected to a U12-008 logger (Onset Computer Corporation, USA). The soil-water consumption Fig. 1.Daily mean air temperature and monthly average rainfall during the crop- growing months (June, July and August) over the year 2000–2014 in the study site.
M.A. Kader et al. / International Soil and Water Conservation Research 5 (2017) 302–308 303
(SWC, mm), which was defined as the cumulative soil-water re- duction (SWCi,j) in the root zone (0–30 cm) between the con- secutive rainfalls throughout the soybean growing period, was estimated. SWCi,j(mm) was estimated from the summation of soil- moisture decrease in 0–10, 10–20 and 20–30 cm soil layers (i¼1m) between two consecutive rainfall events during the soybean growing season (j¼1n) by:
⎛
⎝⎜⎜ ⎞
⎠⎟⎟ ⎛
⎝⎜⎜ ⎞
⎠⎟⎟
( )
∑ ∑ ∑ ∑
θ θ θ θ= = − ≤
( )
= = = =
SWC SWC + d ,
1
j n
i m
i j j
n
i m
RA i j RB i j i RA i j FC i
1 1
,
1 1
, , , , 1 , , ,
where
θ
FC,i(cm3cm3) is soil-moisture content ofi-th soil layer (Table 1) at field capacity (33 kPa),θ
RB,i,j (cm3cm3) is soil-moisture content ofi-th soil layer just beforej-th rainfall event,
θ
RA,i,j (cm3cm3) is soil-moisture content of i-th soil layer justafterj-th rainfall event,di(mm) is thickness ofi-th soil layer,mis the number of soil layer and n is the number of major rainfall events.
2.4. Agronomic management
Soybean seeds were shown on 20 May 2015 at 3 cm below soil surface by making holes manually; seed-to-seed distance was 30 cm. Weeding was done both inside and surrounding the ex- perimental plots by uprooting the roots when required, and the weed biomass was recorded after drying the weeds in oven at 60°C for 72 h. The green soybean was harvested at pod develop- ment stage on 27 August 2015. The growth and yield attributes of the crop were recorded from 10 plants of 1 m 1 m area for each mulching treatment. The plant height, number of nodulations per plant, number of grains (pod) per plant, number of seeds per plant, total seed weight per plant, green grain yield and total biomass yield were recorded. Weight of dry seed per square meter was
determined by drying the seeds in oven at 70°C for 48 h. Chlor- ophyll content of ten leaves per plant was determined by using a SPAD (Soil Plant Analytical Development) meter (SPAD-502; Ko- nica Minolta, Japan) during harvesting of the soybean. Water use efficiency (WUE, g m3) of the crop was calculated as:
=
× ( )
−
Y WUE SWC
10 3 2
whereYis seed yield (g m2) andSWCis the total seasonal soil- water consumption (mm).
3. Results and discussion 3.1. Soil moisture
The soil-moisture content in the soybean plots under the mulching treatmentsfluctuated with rainfall and air temperature over the growing season, with the bare soil (no mulch) exhibiting a greaterfluctuation of soil-moisture content (Fig. 2). The soil- moisture content was the maximum in July due to greater rainfall, but decreased in August due to limited rainfall and greater tem- perature. The daily soil-moisture content at 5 cm depth was the maximum under plastic mulching and minimum in the bare soil.
Table 1
Average monthly climatic parameters (19 May to 27 August 2015) at the experimental site.
Period Rainfall ETo Solar radiation Air temperature (°C) Relative humidity
(mm) (mm day1) (MJ m2day1) Max. Min. Mean (%)
19 May 45.2 5.3 12.7 34.6 14.0 22.0 67.3
June 299.4 4.9 11.1 32.0 16.8 22.8 82.2
July 326.8 5.1 12.5 36.1 21.4 26.8 86.4
27 August 203.0 6.4 17.0 37.4 22.6 28.4 82.1
Table 2
Hydraulic properties, bulk density (BD) and organic matter (OM) content of 0–10, 10–20 and 20–30 cm soil layers underfive different mulching treatments.
Treatment Soil layer θFC θPW AM TAM BD OM
(cm) (cm3cm3) (mm) (mm) (g cm3) (%)
Straw 010 0.38 0.17 21 1.11 3.49
1020 0.35 0.14 21 61 1.19 2.82
2030 0.36 0.17 19 1.42 2.41
Grass 010 0.32 0.13 19 1.06 3.78
1020 0.38 0.16 22 60 1.34 3.70
2030 0.34 0.15 19 1.40 1.70
Paper 010 0.38 0.18 20 1.21 4.33
1020 0.37 0.17 20 57 1.45 3.26
2030 0.32 0.15 17 1.20 2.79
Plastic 010 0.39 0.17 22 1.26 3.53
1020 0.35 0.15 20 62 1.42 2.98
2030 0.34 0.14 20 1.53 2.53
Bare 010 0.37 0.14 23 1.13 3.66
1020 0.38 0.17 21 63 1.39 2.72
2030 0.34 0.15 19 1.43 2.00
θFC:field capacity moisture content;θPW: permanent wilting point moisture con- tent; AM: available soil moisture; TAM: total available soil moisture.
Fig. 2.Mean daily volumetric soil-moisture content at three depths (5, 15 and 25 cm) in the experimental soybean plots under various mulching treatments along with rainfall during the growing period.
Although there was no direct infiltration through the plastic mulch, greater capillary forces beneath the plastic cover accumu- lated water from lateral flow from the buffer zone. The plastic cover prevented surface evaporation and, also, capillaryflux from below the root zone might contribute soil water to the root zone.
Consequently, the moisture content at 5 cm depth increased under the plastic mulch. The availability of soil moisture for soybean plants was much greater at 5 cm depth than at 25 cm depth due to greater root length density in the upper soil layers. This result is in agreement with that ofLi et al. (2007). The paper mulching, on the other hand, provided greater soil moisture at 25 cm depth (Fig. 2).
The newspaper was an impervious mulching material and, in- herently, was porous, hygroscopic, and expanding and shrinking with change in its moisture content (Haapala, Palonen, Korpela, &
Ahokas, 2014). The impervious newspaper mulching retained water in the upper soil layer (5 cm) that also helped increasing soil moisture at the deeper layer (25 cm). The straw mulching stored the maximum quantity of moisture at 15 cm depth, followed by plastic mulching. This mulch increased soil moisture by reducing evaporation from the soil surface (Döring, Brandt, Heß, Finckh, &
Saucke, 2005). The sequence of the quantity of seasonal soil- moisture content under the mulching treatments was: 0.31 (straw) 4 0.30 (plastic) 4 0.28 (newspaper)4 0.27 (grass) 4 0.26 (bare soil) at 15 cm depth against 0.38 (paper) 4 0.31 (plastic)40.30 (straw)40.30 (grass)40.30 (bare soil) at 25 cm depth. The straw mulch, by buffering the extremefluctuations in soil moisture and temperature (Ghosh, Dayal, Bandyopadhyay, &
Mohanty, 2006), improved crop root growth and increased the root exudates, and thus providing more carbon (C) sources and energy for soil microorganisms (Cai et al., 2015). In deeper soil layer (25 cm), the seasonal soil-moisture contents varied over 0.33–0.23, 0.49–0.25, 0.35–0.23, 0.40–0.23 and 0.42–0.18 (cm3cm3) in straw, newspaper, grass, plastic and bare treatment, respectively. The lowest soil moisture was found in the bare soil;
the other mulching treatments stored greater soil water (Fig. 2).
The soil-moisture content at 15 cm depth varied over 0.36–0.20, 0.38–0.14, 0.33–0.15, 0.37–0.19 and 0.42–0.15 (cm3cm3) in straw, newspaper, grass, plastic and bare treatment, respectively.
3.2. Soil temperature
Mulching worked as a buffer media between the atmosphere and soil surface and, consequently, influenced soil temperature.
The mulching treatments protected the soils from hot summer by lowering the daily maximum soil temperature by 1–2°C compared to the bare soil, which exhibited greaterfluctuation of temperature between 21.6°C and 30.8°C (Fig. 3). At 5-cm depth, the highest daily mean soil temperature (27.2°C) was recorded under the grass mulch that was 1.8°C higher compared to the paper mulch over the entire crop growing season (Fig. 3). The paper mulching reduced soil temperature by up to 2°C at different soil depths compared to the bare soil. The plastic mulch exerted moderate influence on soil temperature at different depths (Fig. 3). The silver color plastic mulch reduced soil temperature due to its high re- flectivity, and low absorptivity and transmissivity (Lamont, 1993).
The straw mulch suppressed soil temperature due to the inter- active effects of high solar reflectance and low thermal con- ductivity (Awe, Reichert, Timm, & Wendroth, 2014), and also due to low heat capacity of the straw layer.
In July, straw mulching provided greater soil temperature at 15 and 25 cm depths (Fig. 3). Hourly soil temperature variations un- der different treatments at 5 cm depth between two rainy days (26 July and 30 July) are illustrated in Fig. 4. The hourly soil tem- peraturefluctuations, after rainfall events, were remarkably high for the bare soil and grass mulching. The paper and plastic mulching, on the other hand, provided lower temperature and
exhibited smaller temperaturefluctuations compared to the other treatments. The paper mulch was 0.8°C cooler than the bare soil and the straw mulch was 1.1°C warmer than the plastic mulch (Fig. 4). The magnitude of changes in soil temperature due to mulching varies between different studies that can, perhaps, be attributed to the mulch application rates or climatic conditions.
The temperaturefluctuation interfered with the soil energy bal- ance mechanism, which involved solar radiation, soil temperature, and sensible heat and latent heatfluxes between the mulched and bare soil treatments (Mahrer, 1991; Komariah, Komariah, Ito, Onishi, & Senge, 2011). The input energy, reflected energy and latent heat were small under grass mulching, which provided the highest soil temperature at 5 cm depth. On the other hand, the input energy under paper mulching was much lower compared to grass mulching (reflection and latent heat were considered to be similar). Consequently, the paper mulch provided the lowest soil temperature among the mulching treatments. The paper mulch lowered soil temperature, especially, during July–August at the developmental stage of soybean. The reduced temperature under the paper mulch, compared to the black plastic or bare soil, was also observed byHaapala et al. (2014). These investigators attrib- uted this effect of paper mulch to the lighter color of paper, re- flected light that normally was absorbed by darker surfaces of soil and/or black plasticfilm. Nevertheless, the paper mulch provided, at least to some extent, more uniform temperature than the other mulching treatments.
3.3. Soil-water consumption
The trend of soil-water consumption, SWC, with mulching treatments demonstrates that at the early part of soybean growing season (leaf: v1–v8;Fig. 5), the soil-water extraction was small, but it increased over time until the crop reached maturity. The seasonal SWC was in the order: bare soil (429.0 mm) 4 news- paper (392.5 mm) 4 grass (340.7 mm) 4 straw (311.2 mm) 4 plastic (288.2 mm). The bare soil, compared to the mulching treatments, caused the maximum surface evaporation and, con- sequently, had greater SWC during the crop period. Plastic Fig. 3.Mean daily soil temperature at three depths (5, 15 and 25 cm) in the ex- perimental soybean plots under various mulching treatments during the growing period.
M.A. Kader et al. / International Soil and Water Conservation Research 5 (2017) 302–308 305
mulching remarkably reduced SWC; this result is also supported by Ghosh et al. (2006). The porous plastic mulching, however, could not completely prevent loss due to vapor transfer to the atmosphere through the openings (Yuan, Lei, Mao, Liu, & Wu, 2009); the vapor transfer depends on the mulching materials (Fuchs & Hadas, 2011). The flat plastic cover protected the
underlying soil from incoming solar radiation and kept the soil cooler than it would be without mulching. In case of paper mulching, lower sensible heat reduced soil temperature, and greater latent heat enhanced SWC, with a resultant moderate SWC for this treatment (Fig. 5). Perhaps, after the rainfall events, satu- rated newspaper augmented latent heat at the mulch surface that Fig. 4. Variation of hourly soil temperature between two rainfall events at 5 cm soil depth forfive different mulching treatments.
Fig. 5. Cumulative soil-water consumption from 0 to 30 cm soil profile throughout the soybean growing season underfive different treatments.
Table 3
Growth and yield contributing attributes of soybean under different mulching treatments.
Treatment Plant height Weed biomass Chlorophyll Grain Seed Nodulation
(cm) (kg m2) (SPAD) (No. plant1)
Straw 61.6b72.5 0.17 47.7a71.2 22.8ab72.2 39.5ab74.6 24.3ab73.0
Grass 70.7ab73.3 0.32 47.2a71.0 23.6ab71.6 40.6ab73.0 23.3ab73.2
Paper 77.4a72.7 0.10 46.7a70.7 30.1a72.6 51.4a76.2 38.7a74.5
Plastic 79. 0 a73.2 0.14 48.2a71.2 26.3ab72.4 42.3ab74.6 18.0b71.7
Bare 65.5b72.5 0.30 47.2a71.1 20.4b71.6 33.2b74.4 21.7ab73.5
Significant S – NS S S S
The values are shown as mean7standard error; means were calculated from 10 randomly selected samples. Means with the same letter are not significantly different (Po0.05) based on Tukey's HSD test. S: significantly different and NS: not significantly different.
Table 4
Yield and water use efficiency of soybean under various mulching treatments.
Treatment Fresh biomass Fresh grain yield Green seed yield Seed yield SWC WUE
(g plant1) (g plant1) (g plant1) (g m2) (mm) (g m3)
Straw 176.1a716.6 72.5b78.2 33.7b74.4 118.0 311.2 0.38
Grass 241.5a748.4 83.2ab78.3 31.7b72.9 111.0 340.7 0.33
Paper 222.1a719.4 105.7a79.2 46.5a75.3 162.8 392.5 0.42
Plastic 226.9a727.4 72.4b78.2 34.6b75.9 121.1 288.2 0.43
Bare 165.2a715.5 67.2b76.4 29.2b74.3 102.2 429.0 0.24
Significant NS S S – – –
The values are shown as mean7standard error; means were calculated from 10 randomly selected sample plants. Means with the same letter are not significantly different (Po0.05) based on Tukey's HSD test. S: significantly different and NS: not significantly different.
caused higher SWC rates in the paper mulching. The reproduction and maturity stages of soybean consumed more water than the leaf development stage (Fig. 5). The organic mulching materials (grass, straw, paper) permitted moderate range SWC compared to the bare soil and plastic mulching. The mulching materials, under investigation, therefore provided a protection on soil surface and reduced soil-water extraction rate, with the consequent reduced SWC and increased soil-moisture storage in the root zone soil.
3.4. Yield and water use efficiency
The growth and yield attributes of soybean varied under dif- ferent mulching treatments (Tables 3and4) due to variation of moisture and temperature regimes of the soil, both of which modified soil-water consumption rates. The seed yield of soybean increased under the mulching treatments compared to the bare soil (Table 4). The increased soybean yield under mulching was also reported byArora et al. (2011)andSekhon, Hira, Sidhu, and Thind (2005). Due to unrestricted and high surface evaporation, the soil-moisture content at 5 cm depth in the bare soil was lower and the SWC was higher than in the other treatments (Fig. 5).
Consequently, this treatment provided the lowest seed yield of soybean (102.2 g m2). The organic mulching, particularly, news- paper and straw, helped conserving soil moisture in the 030 cm root zone layer and reduced soil temperature. Consequently, these treatments provided higher seed yield (162.8 and 118.0 g m2, respectively) of soybean than other treatments. The higher soil moisture status enhanced root proliferation and increased nutrient availability to the crop roots (Sarkar & Singh, 2007;Sarkar, 2005) that improved soybean growth and yield. The mulching treat- ments significantly increased total biomass, plant height, number of grains per plant and seed yield per plant compared to the bare soil; the leaf chlorophyll content, however, remained invariable for the mulching treatments and bare soil (Table 3). The paper mulching provided increased fresh biomass (222.1 g plant1), fresh grain (105.7 g plant1) and green seed (46.5 g plant1) yields that, ultimately, augmented seed yield per unit area (162.8 g m2). Under grass mulching, the seed of dry grass con- tributed growing more weeds and, hence, provided the greatest weed density (0.32 kg m2; Table 3) in the plots. The organic mulching more appreciably influenced nitrogenizes activity and nodulation of soybean crop (Siczek & Lipiec, 2011) compared to the plastic and bare mulching (Table 3). There was a significant variation of soybean yield between the organic and plastic mulching treatments, with the highest yield obtained under newspaper mulching (Table 3). In the 0–30 cm soil profile, the highest organic matter (OM, %) was obtained under the newspaper mulch (4.33;3.26;2.79) compared to the control (3.66;2.72;2.00) and other treatments (Table 2). The organic matters of the organic mulches (newspaper, straw), after decomposition, added nutrients to the soil. The additional nutrients, plausibly, contributed to in- crease the yield of soybean compared to the bare soil. Similar re- sult was also reported by Kader et al. (2017). The newspaper mulching provided greater yield due to higher soil-moisture con- tent (Fig. 2) and lower soil temperature in the root zone (Fig. 3), both of which increased nodulation of soybean (Table 3) by en- hancing nitrogen supply.
Different mulch materials showed substantial differences in the improvement of water use efficiency (WUE) of soybean; WUE under the treatments varied from 0.24 to 0.43 g m3(Table 4). The plastic mulching, providing the highest soil-moisture content at 5 cm depth, reduced soil-water consumption rate and resulted in the highest WUE. The bare soil, on the other hand, providing the lowest soil-moisture content due to high surface evaporation, re- sulted in reduced WUE. The WUE increased by 77.4% under the plastic mulch compared to the bare soil and by 60% compared to
the straw mulching.Qin et al. (2015), however, reported 60% in- crease in WUE under plastic mulching due to reduced surface evaporation compared to bare soil (Aggarwal & Sharma, 2002).
4. Conclusions
Newspaper mulching increased seed yield of soybean by 59%
compared to the bare soil and by 34% compared to the plastic mulching; in both cases, the increase was statistically significant.
The water use efficiency, WUE, of the crop, on the other hand, was statistically similar for the paper and plastic mulches that was almost twice as large as that for the bare soil. In rain fed condition, the paper mulch exhibited the greatest effect in increasing soil moisture, reducing soil temperature, and increasing organic mat- ter in 0–30 cm soil profile, all of these soil factors augmented nodulation of soybean. The different mulching treatments lowered daily maximum soil temperature by 1–2°C compared to the bare soil, which showed greaterfluctuations in soil temperature. The newspaper mulching reduced soil temperature by up to 2°C in the root zone compared to the bare soil. The plastic mulching was the most effective for increasing soil-water consumption, SWC, by the soybean plants, followed by the straw mulching. However, com- pared to straw and grass, newspaper could be more effective than plastic in terms of root-zone water storage in areas where rainfall is relevant. The newspaper mulching created better soil-micro environment for soybean growth in hot climatic area by lowering the soil temperature. Therefore, newspaper could be an alternative effective option for mulching material, rather than straw and plastic mulching, in hot summer region, like the central Japan, for vegetable soybean cultivation.
Acknowledgement
The authors gratefully acknowledge the River Basin Research Centre of Gifu University and the Kubota Fund for providing fi- nancial support during the Master's program of thefirst author in Japan.
Appendix A. Supplementary material
Supplementary data associated with this article can be found in the online version athttp://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.iswcr.2017.08.001.
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