Effects of combined drip irrigation and mulching practices on the soil evaporation characteristics in a young apple orchard in arid northwestern China

Highlights

	● Effects of the combination of drip irrigation and mulching practices on SE characteristics in a young orchard were investigated.
	● Mulching treatments significantly affected daily SE and SWCs dynamics of the young orchard.
	● Daily SE under FM and SM treatments was more susceptible to be affected by meteorological factors.
	● SM is considered to be a more effective mulching practice for reducing unproductive SE and improving SWC status in young orchard with DI.

Abstract

Soil evaporation (SE) is a key component of regional hydrological balance, especially in arid areas. China has the largest area of apple orchards in the world, but the effects of mulching practices on SE dynamics and their controlling factors remain poorly understood in orchards using drip irrigation (DI). This study was conducted to address these issues by measuring SE, meteorological factors, soil temperature (ST), and soil water content (SWC) in young apple orchard under two mulching treatments during the growing season. Field experiments, which included three treatments—film mulching (FM) and maize straw mulching (SM), and clean tillage (TL) as a comparator—were conducted in 3-year-old apple orchard with DI in arid northwestern China. The results revealed that mulching significantly affected the daily SE dynamics of the young orchard (p < 0.05), and the daily mean SE under FM, SM, and TL treatments was about 1.3 ± 0.5, 1.3 ± 0.4, and 1.7 ± 0.4 mm·d⁻¹, respectively. No significant differences were detected in the daily SE between FM and SM treatments (p > 0.05), whereas the daily SWC in the four soil layers to 120 cm were consistently greater under SM treatment than under FM and TL treatments (p < 0.05). Compared to the TL treatment, the daily SE under FM and SM treatments was more susceptible to meteorological factors. Stepwise regression analysis showed that the daily SE of the young orchard was mainly controlled by the vapor pressure deficit, reference evapotranspiration and solar radiation, regardless of the treatment. However, there was no significant relationship between the daily SE and wind speed under TL treatment (p > 0.05). This study highlighted the significant differences in SE losses and SWC dynamics of the mulching treatments. Overall, SM is considered to be a more effective mulching practice for reducing unproductive SE and improving SWC status in young apple orchards with DI in arid and similar climatic regions.

Graphical abstract

Keywords

Drip irrigation / orchards soil evaporation / surface mulching / water-limited regions

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the National Key Research and Development Program of China (2022YFD1900502) and the National Field Scientific Observation and Research Station on Efficient Water Use of Oasis Agriculture in Wuwei of Gansu Province (KF2021004). We also thank the four anonymous reviewers for their professional comments which have helped us greatly improve the manuscript.

Compliance with ethics guidelines

Xinyu Wang, Haijing Wang, Xiao Li, and Di Wang declare that they have no conflicts of interest or financial conflicts to disclose. This article does not contain any studies with human or animal subjects performed by any of the authors.

RIGHTS & PERMISSIONS

The Author(s) 2024. Published by Higher Education Press. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0)