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Arid Land Geography ›› 2023, Vol. 46 ›› Issue (9): 1453-1466.doi: 10.12118/j.issn.1000-6060.2022.601

• Biology and Pedology • Previous Articles     Next Articles

Influencing factors of maize traits and yield per unit area in the middle reaches of Shule River Basin

LIU Huancai1,2(),SHI Shuqi1,LI Man1,ZHANG Yanfang1,HAN Li1   

  1. 1. College of Geography, Shanxi Normal University, Taiyuan 030031, Shanxi, China
    2. School of Geography and Tourism, Shaanxi Normal University, Xi’an 710062, Shaanxi, China
  • Received:2022-11-15 Revised:2022-12-25 Online:2023-09-25 Published:2023-09-28

Abstract:

The Shule River Basin is an important grain-producing area in northwest China. Exploring the influence of climate change and human activities on grain production in this region can provide an important scientific basis for promoting regional food security. In this paper, Yumen City, located in the middle reaches of the Shule River Basin, was used as a representative research area. The sensitivity of maize traits and maize yield per unit area to natural factors (maximum temperature, minimum temperature, solar radiation, wind speed, and precipitation) and human factors (policy, irrigation amount, and fertilizer amount) was analyzed using meteorological, field management, soil property, and yield data from 1990 to 2020, based on which 2017 was selected as a typical year. The DSSAT-CERES-Maize model was used to quantitatively analyze the influence of natural and human factors on maize traits and climatic yield per unit area, and the most suitable conditions for maize growth and development in the study area were thus identified. The results showed that: (1) Middle reaches of the Shule River Basin have a warm and humid climate. Fertilizer application showed an increasing-decreasing trend and effective irrigated area showed a continuously increasing trend. (2) Actual yield per unit area showed a slightly increasing trend, and yield per unit area showed an increasing-decreasing-stable trend due to the influence of policies promoting high-quality maize varieties and farmland water conservation measures. Climatic yield per unit area showed a decreasing trend with strong positive sensitivity to the highest moderate precipitation and a strong negative sensitivity to the lowest low temperature. Maize traits showed strong positive sensitivity to fertilizer application quota, effective irrigated area, and lowest temperatures at ear and flowering stages, and strong negative sensitivity to highest temperatures at ear and flowering stages. (3) The optimum conditions for maize growth and development in the study area were found to be as follows: a highest temperature range of 14.80-38.56 ℃, a lowest temperature range of -0.38-22.16 ℃, a solar radiation range of 3.93-25.15 MJ·m-2), a wind speed range of 0-3.81 m·s-1, an irrigation amount of 15 mm, and a fertilizer application rate of 10 kg·hm-2. Within these ranges, the relationship between solar radiation and maize traits and yield was U-shaped, while the relationships between maximum temperature, minimum temperature, wind speed, and water and fertilizer factors and maize traits and yield were inverted U-shaped.

Key words: maize, influencing factor, yield per unit area, traits, Shule River Basin