ALL Metrics
-
Views
-
Downloads
Get PDF
Get XML
Cite
Export
Track
Research Note
Revised

Root mass may affect soil water infiltration more strongly than the incorporated residue

[version 2; peer review: 1 approved with reservations]
PUBLISHED 05 Mar 2019
Author details Author details
OPEN PEER REVIEW
REVIEWER STATUS

This article is included in the Agriculture, Food and Nutrition gateway.

Abstract

Crop residue incorporation increases stable soil pores and soil water infiltration and reduces surface water runoff and soil erosion. However, few studies have examined the relationship between crop residue incorporation and water infiltration. A previous study showed that water infiltration increases depending on the quantity of applied wheat straw. In this study, we examined whether the relationship is applicable to different crop residues in a crop rotation. We grew corn, rose grass, and okra in crop rotation under plastic film houses and measured the water infiltration rate at the time of ridge making. A strong correlation was found between the quantity of applied residue and the soil water infiltration rate (r = 0.953), although there are outliers in the case of no prior crop. However, aboveground biomass of the prior crop showed a stronger correlation with water infiltration rate (r = 0.965), without outliers. Previous studies have revealed the exponential relation between plant root mass and soil erosion. Our data also show a positive relationship between resistance to erosion and root mass when assuming that aboveground biomass is proportional to the underground biomass. The result also showed that the effect of the prior crop root mass disappears within the next crop period. Our results indicate that maintaining a large root biomass is crucial for reducing soil erosion.

Keywords

Crop residue, Crop rotation, Soil erosion, Soil water infiltration, Sustainable agriculture

Revised Amendments from Version 1

Following comments from the peer-reviewers, the manuscript was revised as follows:

Clarification of the content, including supplementary figure 1, was added to explain the objective and methodologies.

The term "soil moisture levels" change to "mulching treatment".

The period of corn residue drying was corrected "a month" to "two months".

See the authors' detailed response to the review by Kae Miyazawa
See the authors' detailed response to the review by Bingcheng Xu

Introduction

Soil degradation is a major constraint of food security (Gomiero, 2016; Lal, 2015), and soil erosion represents one of the crucial intervention points for reversing soil degradation (Karlen & Rice, 2015). The no-tillage method is a major approach to tackle erosion; however, tillage remains a major management approach on arable land. What is the point of preventing soil erosion in practical? The Universal Soil Loss Equation (USLE) (Wischmeier & Smith, 1978) is the standard for estimating erosion. The equation shows that the risk of erosion is reduced when a crop has covered soil surface. This emphasizes the importance of preventing erosion in the early stage of crop growth. In general, it is rare for rain intensity to exceed 30 mm 10 min−1 (Kouhei et al., 2011). Therefore, surface runoff after tillage almost never occurs if the infiltration rate of a field is larger than 30 mm 10 min−1. Finally, technologies increasing the infiltration rate higher than the precipitation rate are needed to prevent soil erosion in tillage systems.

Tillage makes soil porous, but the physical properties are rapidly lost (Strudley et al., 2008). However, organic matter application increases the stability of soil pores (Turmel et al., 2015). Potter et al. (1995) reported that water infiltration of soil was higher under no-tillage than tillage conditions when the residue input was low, but the opposite result was shown when the residue input was high. The soil erosion decreased according to the degree of water infiltration (Potter et al., 1995). Just after residue incorporation, rill erosion rates were significantly reduced (Brown et al., 1989). A previous study reported that surface water runoff under normal subtillage reduced up to the applied wheat straw quantity, as the water infiltration increased with the quantity of applied straw (Russel, 1940), although the relation between the quantity of applied residue and infiltration rate has been less studied. Conversely, it is known that plant root mass is related to rill and ephemeral gully erosion (Gyssels et al., 2005). The effect of residue incorporation is unclear.

Our research aims were as follows: 1) to determine whether the relation between residue incorporation and infiltration holds under crop rotation, and 2) to determine whether the remaining underground root mass influences this relation. To address these questions, we determined water infiltration rates for different biomass levels under even amounts of residue incorporation in crop rotation.

Methods

Study site and treatment

We conducted the experiment in two plastic film houses at the Japan International Research Center for Agricultural Sciences experimental field (24.38°N and 124.19°E) on Ishigaki Island. The climate is subtropical. The soil type was Ultisol (Soil Survey Staff, 2014) and the texture was sandy clay loam. The house was 5 m wide and 18 m long. We made three soil ridges (0.2 m high and 1 m wide) with a 0.5 m path on each side. We divided these ridges into three plots with 0.8 m paths between each plot. In this way, we created nine plots (1 m × 5.2 m) in each film house and randomly assigned them with nine treatments (3 × 3 factorial design). These treatments comprised three nitrogen levels (0, 10, and 40 kg N ha−1; slow-release-type urea only, no other fertilizers were used) and three mulching treatment (unmulched, weed barrier fabric, and black plastic film mulch). Although both nitrogen application and mulch treatment have some impacts, we expected the changes in top-root ratios.

We replicated the treatments using two film houses (A and B). We cropped corn (Zea mays) without fertilizer before the experiment and collected the residue, then chopped the residue into approximately 3 cm pieces using a chopper and dried it for two months under a roof. We adjusted the soil moisture of the house at a suitable level for tillage by irrigating (25–40 mm) with mist irrigation tubes (Kiriko; Mitsubishi Chemical Agri Dream Co., Ltd., Tokyo) and then removed the tubes. We scattered 2 Mg ha−1 of the corn residue, tilled by a rotary tiller, made the ridges, measured the soil water infiltration, set the irrigation tubes again, set the mulch films, transplanted rose grass (Chloris gayana) seedlings with fertilizer, and irrigated up to the field capacity. Additional irrigation was not provided. After harvesting rose grass, we repeated the processes using rose grass residue in the same way for okra (Abelmoschus esculentus). All the crop residues were collected in each house then evenly returned to the plots (each plot received the same amount of residue for the next crop per house; the amount was different between the houses). The growing season of corn, rose grass, and okra were 7 June to 10 August 2016, 14 October 2016 to 11 January 2017, and 12 January to 14 April 2017, respectively. An interval of 65 days was provided between the corn harvesting and the rose grass planting. There was no interval between rose grass harvesting and okra planting. (Supplementary Figure 1).

Infiltration rate measurement

We measured the soil water infiltration rate with Mariotte's bottle (20 cm high, 10 cm in diameter), with two holes in the bottom. Mariotte’s bottle is a device that delivers a constant rate of flow. We inserted a plastic ring of the same diameter into the ridge to a 10 cm depth and then watered from a 1 m height to the ring at a 60 mm min−1 rate. We recorded the time needed to waterlog 50% of the soil surface area. We measured infiltration on the ridge at the initial stage (before the rose grass; with incorporated corn residue), after the rose grass (with incorporated rose grass residue), and after the okra (with incorporated okra residue).

Determination and analysis

The effect of the soil moisture difference treatment was determined at the end of okra cropping by extracting soil core samples from 0 to 5 cm soil depth on the ridge. Aboveground biomass was calculated by multiplying the plot’s whole fresh biomass weight to the average moisture content of the air-dried samples’ in each house. We performed Pearson’s product moment correlation analysis of the infiltration rate for the quantity of applied residue or for the aboveground biomass (dry weight) using the “CORREL” function of MS Excel 2016. The correlation coefficients were calculated for the mean values of nitrogen levels and for that of the mulch levels. The mean values of nitrogen levels show the effects of aboveground biomass, which averaged out the effect of soil moisture. By contrast, the mean values of mulch levels show the effect of soil moisture.

Results

The incorporated residues of each house were 2.0 and 2.0 Mg ha−1 for the initial stage (before seeding the rose grass), 3.8 and 4.7 Mg ha−1 after the rose grass, and 0.8 and 0.8 Mg ha−1 after the okra. The corresponding infiltration rates were 45 and 36 mm, 97 and 123 mm, and 32 and 47 mm, respectively. There was a strong correlation between the quantity of incorporated residue dry weight and soil water infiltration rate (r = 0.953) in terms of nitrogen level treatment, although initial corn residue showed outliers (Figure 1a). However, aboveground biomass of the prior crop showed a higher correlation with soil water infiltration rate (r = 0.965), without outliers (Figure 1b). The correlation coefficient of the infiltration rate and the aboveground weight decreased to r = 0.872 for the mulch level treatment (Figure 1c). The soil moisture (0–5 cm) of the N0, N1, and N4 treatment at the end of okra cropping was 8.3% (±1.6%), 7.2% (±1.0%), and 7.8% (±1.7%), respectively (Oda et al., 2018). The soil moisture of the unmulched, the fabric, and the film treatments were 6.5% (±0.7%), 7.6% (±0.8%), and 9.7% (±0.9%), respectively (Oda et al., 2018).

db25d174-abdb-479d-92b4-5a8cb7154e62_figure1.gif

Figure 1. Correlation between input residue or aboveground biomass and the soil water infiltration rate.

(a, b) Means of the nitrogen-level treatment. (c) Means of the mulch-level treatment. Crop rotation was conducted as follows: corn, rose grass, and okra in plastic film houses. An interval of 65 days was provided between the corn harvesting and the rose grass planting. There was no interval between rose grass harvesting and okra planting. Houses A and B are replicates. We measured the soil infiltration rates on the ridge using artificial rainfall equipment on the day of making the ridge. The values are the mean of three plots.

Discussion and conclusions

We found a strong correlation between input residue and the infiltration rates for the nitrogen-level treatment (Figure 1a). However, the average infiltration rate of initial stage was almost the same as that of after okra, although the input quantity of the initial stage (2.0 Mg ha−1) was a 2.5-fold higher than after okra (0.8 Mg ha−1). By contrast, the correlation for the aboveground biomass had no outliers (Figure 1b). This reveals that aboveground biomass affects infiltration rate more than the applied residue. A previous study has shown that the decrease in water erosion rates with increasing root mass is exponential, although infiltration was not mentioned (Gyssels et al., 2005). Our data show a positive relationship between resistance to erosion and root mass when assuming that aboveground biomass is proportional to the underground biomass.

The mulch treatment data shows that correlation between the aboveground weight and infiltration rate was erratic (Figure 1c). The soil moisture difference caused large differences in aboveground growth. In addition, the unit performance of infiltration was not stable. The difference of soil water content at most 3.2% (6.5% of the unmulched and 9.7% of the film) in top 5 cm was negligible against the 25–40 mm of applied water before measurement for making the ridge. Therefore, it is considered that the outliers did not come from the difference of soil moisture but came from the difference of root mass, which was affected by the soil dryness.

We should consider the duration of the “after-effect” of the prior crop, such as the roots of rose grass on the soil water infiltration rate measurement of after okra (Wischmeier & Smith, 1978). Two facts support the observation of a small after-effect. Firstly, the infiltration rates were very small (32 and 47 mm) after okra, although they were very large (97 and 123 mm) after rose grass. Secondly, the correlation between the aboveground biomass and the infiltration rate was stable and less was affected by a prior crop. Therefore, we conclude that the effect of the prior crop root mass almost disappears within the next crop growth period under the experimental conditions.

Finally, the key finding of this study is that the effect of aboveground residue quantity, more precisely root mass, was stronger than the incorporated residue. Although the residue quantity was the main factor determining the infiltration rates at tillage, the fairly low performance of initial corn residue is remarkable. This is likely to be because interval between harvesting corn and rose grass planting was very high (65 days). The soil pores would have been decreased. From a physical viewpoint, the area of residue surface is far smaller than that of the root surface. And the gap is easily clogged by sediment caused by rainfall. Therefore, the improvement of soil water infiltration probably comes from root mass (Gyssels et al., 2005). This suggests the importance of sequential cropping in tropical regions.

Data availability

Raw data of this article are presented in figshare: https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.6741890.v1 (Oda et al., 2018).

Data are available under the terms of the Creative Commons Zero "No rights reserved" data waiver (CC0 1.0 Public domain dedication).

Comments on this article Comments (0)

Version 7
VERSION 7 PUBLISHED 21 Sep 2018
Comment
Author details Author details
Competing interests
Grant information
Article Versions (7)
Copyright
Download
 
Export To
metrics
Views Downloads
F1000Research - -
PubMed Central
Data from PMC are received and updated monthly.
- -
Citations
CITE
how to cite this article
Oda M, Rasyid B and Omae H. Root mass may affect soil water infiltration more strongly than the incorporated residue [version 2; peer review: 1 approved with reservations]. F1000Research 2019, 7:1523 (https://doi.org/10.12688/f1000research.16242.2)
NOTE: If applicable, it is important to ensure the information in square brackets after the title is included in all citations of this article.
track
receive updates on this article
Track an article to receive email alerts on any updates to this article.

Open Peer Review

Current Reviewer Status: ?
Key to Reviewer Statuses VIEW
ApprovedThe paper is scientifically sound in its current form and only minor, if any, improvements are suggested
Approved with reservations A number of small changes, sometimes more significant revisions are required to address specific details and improve the papers academic merit.
Not approvedFundamental flaws in the paper seriously undermine the findings and conclusions
Version 2
VERSION 2
PUBLISHED 05 Mar 2019
Revised
Views
27
Cite
Reviewer Report 06 Mar 2019
Kae Miyazawa, Graduate School of Agricultural and Life Sciences, University of Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan 
Approved with Reservations
VIEWS 27
Introduction:
  • I could see some improvement in the introduction structure, however, it is still not structured enough to explain the importance of this research. For example, there is no explanation in the introduction about why it
... Continue reading
CITE
CITE
HOW TO CITE THIS REPORT
Miyazawa K. Reviewer Report For: Root mass may affect soil water infiltration more strongly than the incorporated residue [version 2; peer review: 1 approved with reservations]. F1000Research 2019, 7:1523 (https://doi.org/10.5256/f1000research.20109.r45282)
NOTE: it is important to ensure the information in square brackets after the title is included in all citations of this article.
  • Author Response 11 Mar 2019
    Masato Oda, Japan International Research Center for Agricultural Sciences, Owashi, Japan
    11 Mar 2019
    Author Response
    Thank you for the prompt response. However, I'm sorry that you didn't give me a response to our question about the outliers.

    "the authors are mainly writing about no-tillage results in ... Continue reading
COMMENTS ON THIS REPORT
  • Author Response 11 Mar 2019
    Masato Oda, Japan International Research Center for Agricultural Sciences, Owashi, Japan
    11 Mar 2019
    Author Response
    Thank you for the prompt response. However, I'm sorry that you didn't give me a response to our question about the outliers.

    "the authors are mainly writing about no-tillage results in ... Continue reading
Version 1
VERSION 1
PUBLISHED 21 Sep 2018
Views
52
Cite
Reviewer Report 07 Feb 2019
Kae Miyazawa, Graduate School of Agricultural and Life Sciences, University of Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan 
Approved with Reservations
VIEWS 52
This is a short report to investigate the infiltration rate under different treatments, conducted in 2 green houses. The treatments were 3 levels of urea input, and 3 ways for mulching. They have grown corn, rose grass, and okra, and ... Continue reading
CITE
CITE
HOW TO CITE THIS REPORT
Miyazawa K. Reviewer Report For: Root mass may affect soil water infiltration more strongly than the incorporated residue [version 2; peer review: 1 approved with reservations]. F1000Research 2019, 7:1523 (https://doi.org/10.5256/f1000research.17738.r43591)
NOTE: it is important to ensure the information in square brackets after the title is included in all citations of this article.
  • Author Response 28 Feb 2019
    Masato Oda, Independent Scientist, Japan
    28 Feb 2019
    Author Response
    First of all, we respect you for bravely participating in the open review. As you know, the open review has not been popular in our field of sciences. We are ... Continue reading
COMMENTS ON THIS REPORT
  • Author Response 28 Feb 2019
    Masato Oda, Independent Scientist, Japan
    28 Feb 2019
    Author Response
    First of all, we respect you for bravely participating in the open review. As you know, the open review has not been popular in our field of sciences. We are ... Continue reading

Comments on this article Comments (0)

Version 7
VERSION 7 PUBLISHED 21 Sep 2018
Comment
Alongside their report, reviewers assign a status to the article:
Approved - the paper is scientifically sound in its current form and only minor, if any, improvements are suggested
Approved with reservations - A number of small changes, sometimes more significant revisions are required to address specific details and improve the papers academic merit.
Not approved - fundamental flaws in the paper seriously undermine the findings and conclusions
Sign In
If you've forgotten your password, please enter your email address below and we'll send you instructions on how to reset your password.

The email address should be the one you originally registered with F1000.

Email address not valid, please try again

You registered with F1000 via Google, so we cannot reset your password.

To sign in, please click here.

If you still need help with your Google account password, please click here.

You registered with F1000 via Facebook, so we cannot reset your password.

To sign in, please click here.

If you still need help with your Facebook account password, please click here.

Code not correct, please try again
Email us for further assistance.
Server error, please try again.