The North China Plain is a crucial “granary” in China, with its winter wheat and summer season maize planting areas accounting for 73.6% and 30.6% of the nationwide complete for wheat and maize respectively. However, its agricultural manufacturing has lengthy been trapped in the dilemma of “high input, low efficiency” – fertilizer utilization has elevated greater than 4 instances in contrast with 40 years in the past, whereas grain output has solely risen by 1.2 instances. Problems reminiscent of over-exploitation of water sources and soil degradation have additionally grow to be more and more outstanding. How to stability agricultural manufacturing and ecological safety whereas guaranteeing meals safety?
Recently, a group led by Professor Weifeng Zhang and Peng Ning from the College of Resources and Environmental Sciences at China Agricultural University proposed a sustainable manufacturing pathway to attain an annual yield of 22.5 tons per hectare in the winter wheat-summer maize rotation system on the North China Plain, offering a scientific reference for fixing this problem. The associated paper was printed in Frontiers of Agricultural Science and Engineering (DOI: 10.15302/J-FASE-2025618).
The research factors out that the present common annual yield of winter wheat and summer season maize for farmers on the North China Plain is 12.8 t·ha-1, whereas the highest yield document in the area has reached 28.1 t·ha-1, indicating big potential for grain yield enhance. However, in conventional planting patterns, extreme fertilizer utility results in low nutrient use effectivity, steady depletion of regional groundwater, soil natural matter content material being solely one-third of that in U.S. farmland, and frequent excessive local weather occasions (reminiscent of late frost and drought) threatening crop progress. If the present mannequin stays unchanged, the progress in meals demand by 2050 will additional exacerbate useful resource and environmental pressures.
Through the coordinated regulation of a number of elements together with “soil-crop-climate-management”, it’s doable to cut back useful resource enter whereas increasing yield. For instance, in phrases of optimizing the cropping system, appropriately delaying the sowing date of winter wheat and extending the filling interval of summer season maize can enhance the utilization effectivity of gentle and warmth sources at a price of 71.7 kg·ha-1·yr-1; adopting the “four dense and one sparse” wide-narrow row planting technology mixed with shallow-buried drip irrigation can understand exact synchronous administration of water and fertilizer, decreasing nitrogen enter in contrast with conventional fashions whereas increasing wheat and maize yields.
Soil enchancment is one other key strategy. Long-term utility of natural fertilizer and straw returning can enhance soil natural matter content material. When soil natural matter reaches 20-30 g·kg-1, crop yield can enhance by about one-fifth, and the soil’s capacity to retain water and fertilizer can be enhanced. Deep plowing can break the plow layer, enhance soil permeability, and when mixed with no-tillage technology, it can scale back carbon emissions and obtain “carbon sequestration in soil”.
At current, the getting older of agricultural labor pressure on the North China Plain is intensifying, and conventional experience-based planting is troublesome to satisfy the wants of modernization. Through the “Science and Technology Courtyard” mannequin, researchers reside in villages to conduct experiments along with farmers, reworking complicated applied sciences into “easy to learn and use” localized options. For instance, in the follow in Quzhou County, Hebei Province, after farmers participated in technology design, wheat and maize yields elevated by 7.2% and 11.4% respectively, and nitrogen use effectivity improved by 27%-28.1%, proving that the “scientist + farmer” collaborative innovation is an efficient path for technology promotion.
The research means that in the future, efforts ought to be made to advertise sustainable crop manufacturing from the following elements: first, prioritize the strengthening of agricultural infrastructure development and the enchancment of cultivated land soil high quality; second, speed up the breeding of superior crop varieties to completely launch high-yield potential; third, promote the interconnection and integration of analysis strategies, specializing in the built-in utility of superior varieties, efficient strategies and superior applied sciences; fourth, coordinate nationwide insurance policies and social actions, and strengthen the development of agricultural technology extension service capabilities.