Effect of crop rotation and irrigation on wheat yield and water-use efficiency

To efficiently utilize water resources and to ensure reasonable irrigation systems of winter wheat in rotation with different crops, the effect of rotation and irrigation on wheat yield and water-use efficiency was determined under plot design experiment. From the results, the order of average wheat yield for maize, sunflower, soybean and fallow rotation under three irrigation treatments is maize>sunflower>fallow>soybean. On the basis of water-use efficiency, the order is sunflower>maize>soybean>fallow. Wheat yield and water-use efficiency increase with increasing irrigation amount for all the rotation systems. Soybean-wheat rotation has the most impact on wheat yield and water-use efficiency with irrigation at wheat grain filling stage, while the other rotation systems are most advantageous with irrigation at wheat jointing stage. The dynamics of the characteristics of water storage and consumption in each rotation system at different growth stages and irrigation schemes simultaneously play out.