Research Advances in Spatio-Temporal Coupling of Water and Fertilizer in Sugarcane

Yongxian LIU, Meili SHI, Mengling NONG, Rulin XIE*, Yan ZENG, Ying XING, Caihui WEI,Liumei XIONG,, Hongwei TAN, Fusheng LI

1. Agricultural Resources and Environment Research Institute, Guangxi Academy of Agricultural Sciences/Key Laboratory of Plant Nutrition and Fertilizer, Ministry of Agriculture, Nanning 530007, China;

2. Guangxi Soil and Fertilizer Station, Nanning 530007, China;

3. College of Agriculture, Guangxi University, Nanning 530004, China

As the main sugar-yielding crop in China, the planting area of sugarcane reaches 1.56 million hm2. The sugarcane planting area in Guangxi,China’s largest sugarcane producing province,reached 1.08 million hm2(2012/2013 season),accounting for 69.2% of the total production in China. Sugarcane is the most-widely grown cash crop in Guangxi, so, sugarcane production occupies a very important position in economy of Guangxi.The sugarcane yield and efficiency directly affect the farmers’income and the development of local agriculture and rural economy. Therefore, vigorously developing sugarcane production and further optimizing agricultural industry structure have important meaning to promote the agricultural synergism, farmers’ income and social stability in western region.Water and nutrients are the most important factors affecting crop production[1]. Though on sugarcane production and scientific research, certain progress has been obtained from some simple experimental studies on fertilizer,water controlling and different combinations of water and fertilizer coupling, research on the temporal and spatial coupling mechanism and efficient use of water and fertilizer are rarely reported. Therefore, in the dry farming of sugarcane production, research on water and fertilizer coupling mechanism, rational and quantitative fertilization, scientific and timely irrigation to achieve "control water by fertilizer" and "control fertilizer by water"are particularly important to improve water and nutrient use efficiency,drought resistance, sugar accumulation and quality of sugarcane, and to promote best use of limited water resources and soil fertility, excavate thepotential production of natural precipitation and soil nutrients,which can provide the scientific basis for the implementation of fertigation project,drip irrigation and micro irrigation, and can provide the reliable technical support for the development of Guangxi sugarcane industry. Also, it has important significance to increase the farmers’income, reduce fertilizer loss of farmland, soil erosion and environment pollution.

Demand and Research Status of Water and Fertilizer Coupling on Sugarcane Production

The sugarcane planting areas are located in the hilly or barren regions of Guangxi, Yunnan and Guangdong Provinces where regional and seasonal drought is very prominent,so the natural conditions for sugarcane production in China are relatively poor. In recent years, the atural disasters like frequent extreme weather conditions,uneven distribution of rainfall, universal phenomenon of spring and autumn drought caused serious influence on China’s sugarcane production.For example, 90% of sugarcane are planted in dry slopes in Guangxi, where water infrastructure are unavailable, and the effective irrigation areas are less than 10%; 70% of the sugarcane in Yunnan are grown in dry lands.Sugarcane production was seriously affected by the extreme drought in 2010 which had never happened in the past 80 years, causing serious losses to the sugarcane farmers and the economy of sugar enterprise. In Guangxi, the main sugarcane producing province,the abundant, but uneven spatial and temporal distribution of rainfall result in frequent seasonal and regional drought, and thus drought and water shortage have become the main limiting factors of high and stable yield of sugarcane[2]. Besides, more than 40%of Guangxi nearly 10 million hm2is karst areas, where the arid and semiarid regions are up to 0.5 million hm2,but the irrigated area is not more than 34%. The annual precipitation ranges from 1 000 to 1 350 mm, but 60%-80% of the precipitation concentrates in May to September, so the rainfall in other months is not sufficient.The wet and dry seasons are distinct, spring and autumn droughts occur frequently.The crop planting area affected by drought in autumn and winter was up to 0.300 5 million hm2in Guangxi in 2003. In the spring of 2010, the crop planting area affected by drought was up to 0.8 million hm2(according to the data from Guangxi Flood Control and Drought Relief Headquarters). At present, drought has become the main natural factor restricting sugarcane production. Sugarcane is one of crops that need much water. However, rainfall at seeding stage in spring can only meet 74.4% of the water requirement of sugarcane, rainfall at tillering stage in spring and summer can only meet 68.6% of the water requirement, and rainfall at mature period in autumn can only meet 35% of the water demand[3]. Therefore, drought is a major problem in sugarcane production and economic development.

Water saving mechanism and application research for partial root-zone irrigation (PRI)have been a hot issue in recent years[4-9]. It is a new idea of controlling farmland water that when partial crop roots are affected by drought, it can not only control water consumption through transpiration,meet crops water requirement, but also can develop the maximum fertilizer efficiency through "control fertilizer by water" to improve yield and quality of crops,which is a new breakthrough of the current conventional irrigation technology.At present,there are many reports of experimental research and application of partial root-zone irrigation on some crops in arid and semiarid regions.It is a simple technique on production, has been implemented in Hexi Corridor of China, Vitoria of Australia, and has achieved remarkable effects of saving water and increasing benefit. It is mainly suitable for fruit trees, wide-line crops and dry crops of furrow irrigation etc., At present, the technology has been successfully applied on fruit tree, corn, tobacco,cotton, wheat, tomatoes and lily[7-34］.Partial root-zone irrigation as a new technology of agricultural water-saving irrigation,has reliable theoretical basis,but experimental researches on sugarcane in Southern have been seldom reported.

Water and fertilizer have always been concerned as two major factors on agricultural production, and also as two important technical measures can be controlled. The water and nutrient use efficiency of farmland is very low in China,as the irrigation water use efficiency is only about 40% and the fertilizer utilization ratio is only about 30%;but in some developed countries the water and nutrient use efficiency are above 80% and 50%-60%, respectively. The effects of water and nutrient on crops growth are coordinated and interactive. In the farmland system, the dynamic equilibrium relationship of mutual promotion and antagonistic between water and nutrient,among nutrients, among crops with water and fertilizer,and effect of these interactions on the formation of crops growth and yield are called the coupling effect of water and fertilizer. At present, a lot of researches on the interaction and coupling mode of water and fertilizer on farmland at home and abroad have been carried out. In China, the interaction and coupling mode of water and fertilizer on dry land has always been the key topic in the multi-subject and multi-professional joint research, and some achievements and breakthroughs have been achieved. For example, on sugarcane production, there are many reports about controlling only fertilizer[35-36]or water[37-38]to improve the growth,yield,quality and economic benefits of sugarcane, and some reports about the coupling effects of different levels of fertilization and irrigation[40-41]. We also carried out some researches on the reduction technology of sugarcane fertilization based on drip irrigation condition[3].From the angle of sustainable development, the coupling of water and fertilizer is the only way to strive for high yield, efficiency and sugar on sugarcane[3,42-45].

Research Status of the Temporal and Spatial Coupling Effect of Water and Fertilizer on Sugarcane

The sugarcane’s demand and sensitivity to fertilizer and water[46],and interaction between water and fertilizervary in different growth stages of sugarcane. We studied the water and fertilizer demands of sugarcane at different growth stages in Guangxi University and Longan sugarcane test base of Guangxi Academy of Agricultural Sciences from 2012 to 2013.The research results are basically the same with the regularity of water at different growth stages of sugarcane proposed by Li et al.[47]in 2010: water demand at bud stage,tillering,elongation and mature stage accounted for 5%-20%, 15%-25%, 55%-60% and 5%-20% of the total water required during whole growth period of sugarcane, respectively. Wu et al.[48]found drought at reduced the sugarcane stem diameter, the growth speed of stem and leaf at early elongation stage, causing sugarcane premature or even plant death, but was conducive to the early demise of ineffective tillering and sugar accumulation at later stages. However, there are few reports on controlling of water deficit at spatial-root zone at home and abroad.

The coordination effect of water and fertilizer are not the same through different ways of space coupling in different positions of sugarcane. Partial root-zone irrigation is a new irrigation technology of saving water and increasing yield, according to the relationship of photosynthesis and transpiration with leaf stoma opening, and the mechanism of root signal transmission and stoma regulation on the condition of drought[49].

At present, there are many reports of experimental research and application of partial root-zone irrigation on some dry crops in arid and semi-arid regions. It is a simple technique on production, mainly suitable for fruit trees, wide-line crops and dry crops of furrow irrigation etc. At present, the technology has achieved good effects on fruit tree, tobacco,cotton,wheat,corn,tomatoes and Lily.Partial root-zone irrigation as a new technology of agricultural water saving irrigation,has reliable theoretical basis.However, experimental research on sugarcane of dry land in Southern acid soil region in China are seldom reported, and many previous studies were conducted on the conditions of adequate fertilization during the whole growth stages, but research on the coordinated effects of partial root-zone irrigation and fertilization level combining with different growth stages of sugarcane have not been reported.Drip fertigation is now one of the most advanced water-saving irrigation technologies in the world, and always an ideal implementation way of water and fertilizer coupling. It has been widely used and promoted during years of development. The application prospects of drip irrigation in dry land are very broad[50-52]. However, application of drip fertigation on sugarcane production has just started, relevant knowledge of drip fertigation is still not enough in the actual agricultural technology extension, and the producer have not master the essentials of operation, so that many problems for drip fertigation still exist[51].How to combine the partial root-zone irrigation with drip fertigation and other advanced irrigation methods, and find out the best way of spatial coupling of water and fertilizer on sugarcane production will become a new research focus in the field of water and fertilizer coupling of sugarcane.

Problems Existing in the Studies of Temporal and Spatial Coupling of Water and Fertilizer on Sugarcane

In China, water resources as the source of life will attract more and more attention,as well as the research of the effect and mechanism of water and fertilizer coupling. Though the coupling effect of water and fertilizer on sugarcane growth process has been studied, but the interaction of water and fertilizer coupling on sugarcane from time and space is rarely reported. So far, the combination of partial root-zone irrigation with drip fertigation, micro irrigation and other advanced irrigation ways has not been systematically researched, and there are no reasonable index system for such combination. Therefore, it is still impossible to accurately describe the coordination and basic rules of temporal and spatial coupling of water and fertilizer and its relationship with the formation of yield and sugar content.

The production infrastructure including irrigation facilities in many sugarcane producing regions is still not developed.So the sugarcane production mainly depends on the weather.However,there is temporal and spatial contradiction between natural rainfall and water need for sugarcane growth.For example, the drought in spring will seriously affects the effective tillering of sugarcane, leading to less effective seedlings.Besides,the basin and lowlying areas are often waterlogged,while slope and mountain areas are usually affected by drought.

Prospects

At present, the sugarcane planting area in China is nearly 1.6 million hm2, the planting area of Guangxi has reached 1.1 million hm2, which is the largest sugarcane planting province in China, but rational fertilization and scientific irrigation technology system have not formed in sugarcane field ecosystem,resulting in many problems in sugarcane production, such as low rate of the water and fertilizer utilization, fertilizer loss, among them, soil and water loss are more serious in current sugarcane production. In future work,it is urgent to investigate the effects of water regulation on the main nutrient absorption and the effects of nutrient synergy on sugarcane tolerance to waterlogging and drought, the coordination pattern between water and nutrient from time and space, the optimal combination of water and nutrient consumption at different growth stages,the basic rules of the temporal and spatial coordination mechanism of water and fertilizer and its relationship with the formation of yield and sugar content according to the water and fertilizer requirement of different sugarcane cultivars growing in different soils at different growth stages, to provide theory basis for setting up the technical system of efficient use of water and fertilizer resources in sugarcane field ecological system, and to promote the development of soil science, agronomy, plant nutrition and other disciplines. It also provides theoretical basis for changing the current situation of low utilization rate of water and fertilizer of sugarcane field.

For the production practice of sugarcane,rational plan and layout on sugarcane field arevery important. An integrated fertilization and irrigation system in sugarcane field should be developed according to local conditions, by combining partial root-zone irrigation,drip irrigation,micro sprinkler irrigation and other advanced watersaving irrigation technology with fertigation. In addition, the combined use of advanced drip irrigation,micro sprinkler irrigation and channel, pipeline system with water supply irrigation facilities like water tank that specific in mountain areas will help to improve the use efficiency of water and nutrient,sugarcane yield and sugar content in sugarcane production in South of China, which are very important to promote sugarcane industry development, improve utilization efficiency of water and fertilizer resource, increase sugarcane farmers’ income, reduce sugarcane fertilizer, water and soil loss, solve the sharp contradiction of high-yield, high-efficiency production and environmental protection.

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