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Journal of Arid Land  2014, Vol. 6 Issue (3): 361-370    DOI: 10.1007/s40333-014-0001-0
Research Articles     
Localized salt accumulation: the main reason for cotton root length decrease during advanced growth stages under drip irrigation with mulch film in a saline soil
WenXuan MAI, ChangYan TIAN, Li LI
State Key Laboratory of Desert and Oasis Ecology, Xinjiang Institute of Ecology and Geography, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Urumqi 830011, China
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Abstract  High salinity in soil can prevent root growth of most plants. To investigate soil salinity dynamics under drip irrigation with mulch film (DI) and its effects on cotton root length, we conducted field experiments in saline soil based on a monolith method using flooding irrigation with mulch film (FI) as a control at the Korla Experimental Station of the Xinjiang Academy of Agricultural Sciences, China in 2009 and 2010. The results showed that the total root length decreased 120 days after sowing (DAS) under DI, and was mainly centered in the 0–30 cm soil layer and at distances of 30–70 cm from the drip-lines. There was almost complete overlap in the area of root length decline and salt accumulation. In the soil depth of 0–30 cm and at distances of 30–70 cm from the drip-lines at 110 to 160 DAS in 2009 and 171 DAS in 2010, the electrical conductivity (EC) in all soil samples was at least 3 mS/cm and in some cases exceeded 5 mS/cm under DI treatment. However, EC barely exceeded 3 mS/cm and no reduc-tion in root length was observed under FI treatment. Correlation analysis of soil EC and root length density indicated that the root length declined when the soil EC exceeded 2.8 mS/cm. The main reason for the decrease of root length in cotton under DI was localized accumulation of salinity.

Key wordsactual evaporation      GRACE satellite data      water storage change      water balance equation      source region of the Yellow River     
Received: 07 May 2013      Published: 10 June 2014
Fund:  

The National Natural Science Foun-dation of China (31000252, 31201681), and the Science and Technology Supporting Project of the Department of Science and Technology of Xinjiang, China (200840102-08).

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Cite this article:

WenXuan MAI, ChangYan TIAN, Li LI. Localized salt accumulation: the main reason for cotton root length decrease during advanced growth stages under drip irrigation with mulch film in a saline soil. Journal of Arid Land, 2014, 6(3): 361-370.

URL:

http://jal.xjegi.com/10.1007/s40333-014-0001-0     OR     http://jal.xjegi.com/Y2014/V6/I3/361

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