Potato-Cabbage Double Cropping Effect on Nitrate Leaching and Resource-Use Efficiencies in an Irrigated Area

Bo Hu, Ming Shou Fan*, Yun Feng Hao, Jianhua ZHANG

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalJournal articlepeer-review

4 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

To reduce the nitrate leaching risk after potato (Solanum tuberosum L.) harvest and improve nitrogen fertilizer-use efficiency, a potato-cabbage double cropping system (DCS) was established at Hetao, North China, an arid area with irrigated land. A two-year field experiment demonstrated that planting early-maturing potato cultivar under plastic mulch shortened its growth period by 14 d and allowed a second crop of cabbage to scavenge the soil residual NO3-S-N to a depth of 160 cm, substantially reducing the risk of nitrate leaching into groundwater. The yearly total N uptake in DCS was about 110 kg ha-1 more than that in the conventional cropping system (CCS), i.e., mono potato planting. This accounted for apparent nitrogen recovery (ANR) improvement of 16.90%-26.57% in the DCS as compared to that in the CCS for both years. As a result, the soil residual NO3--N in the 0-160 cm soil profile in the DCS was lower than that in the CCS. The solar energy-use efficiency and soil-use efficiency were also substantially increased with DCS.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)842-847
Number of pages6
JournalPedosphere
Volume22
Issue number6
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Dec 2012

Scopus Subject Areas

  • Soil Science

User-Defined Keywords

  • Apparent nitrogen recovery
  • Nitrogen uptake
  • Soil resources
  • Solar energy
  • Yield

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