Soil Texture and Cultivar Effects on Rice (Oryza sativa, L.) Grain Yield, Yield Components and Water Productivity in Three Water Regimes
March
Soil Texture and Cultivar Effects on Rice (Oryza sativa, L.) Grain Yield, Yield Components and Water Productivity in Three Water Regimes
Fugen Dou 0 1
Junel Soriano 1
Rodante E. Tabien 0 1
Kun Chen 1
0 Texas A&M AgriLife Research Center at Beaumont , 1509 Aggie Dr., Beaumont, TX, 77713 , United States of America, 2 International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics , Patancheru 502 324, Telangana , India , 3 Department of Statistics, University of Connecticut , Storrs, CT, 06269 , United States of America
1 Editor: Dafeng Hui, Tennessee State University , UNITED STATES
The objective of this study was to determine the effects of water regime/soil condition (continuous flooding, saturated, and aerobic), cultivar ('Cocodrie' and 'Rondo'), and soil texture (clay and sandy loam) on rice grain yield, yield components and water productivity using a greenhouse trial. Rice grain yield was significantly affected by soil texture and the interaction between water regime and cultivar. Significantly higher yield was obtained in continuous flooding than in aerobic and saturated soil conditions but the latter treatments were comparable to each other. For Rondo, its grain yield has decreased with soil water regimes in the order of continuous flooding, saturated and aerobic treatments. The rice grain yield in clay soil was 46% higher than in sandy loam soil averaged across cultivar and water regime. Compared to aerobic condition, saturated and continuous flooding treatments had greater panicle numbers. In addition, panicle number in clay soil was 25% higher than in sandy loam soil. The spikelet number of Cocodrie was 29% greater than that of Rondo, indicating that rice cultivar had greater effect on spikelet number than soil type and water management. Water productivity was significantly affected by the interaction of water regime and cultivar. Compared to sandy loam soil, clay soil was 25% higher in water productivity. Our results indicated that cultivar selection and soil texture are important factors in deciding what water management option to practice.
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OPEN ACCESS
Data Availability Statement: All relevant data are
within the paper and its Supporting Information file.
Funding: This research was partially funded by the
Fulbright-Philippine Agriculture Scholarship Program
under the Philippine-American Educational
Foundation, Bureau of Agricultural Research of the
Department of Agriculture in the Philippines, Bulacan
Agricultural State College and International Rice
Research Institute. The funders had no role in study
design, data collection and analysis, decision to
publish, or preparation of the manuscript.
Introduction
Water as a natural resource is becoming limiting in production agriculture. Drought has been
reported in several countries affecting their food production [
1–2
]. With climate change, this
problem can be aggravated thus water has to be used efficiently. Efficiency in water management
is commonly measured by water productivity (WP), defined as the ratio of the marketable crop
Competing Interests: The authors have declared
that no competing interests exist.
yield over actual evapotranspiration [3]. In the past decades, rice WP has increased substantially.
A recent review has indicated that rice WP has more than doubled in the past 20 years from an
average of around 0.34 g paddy rice per kg water to around 0.77 g kg-1 [
3
], largely due to
increased yield from the development and adoption of improved varieties and management
strategies [
4
], and to a lesser degree to the introduction of rice water management [
5
].
In addition, soil can play important roles in rice production in terms of water productivity.
First, soil texture can affect soil available water capacity (AWC). Usually, clay soil contains
more organic matter than sandy soil because of greater physical protection attributed from clay
[
6
]. Greater content of organic matter generally means greater AWC. After a critical review,
Hudson [
7
] reported that as soil organic matter content increased from 0.5 to 3%, AWC of the
soil is more than doubled. Loss of organic matter coupled with soil compaction can
significantly reduce crop yield [
8
]. Secondly, soil also affects crop root growth, a main organ in water
uptake. In particular, soil texture or structure can affect root production. Usually, bigger roots
have greater potential in elongation and therefore can enhance better water and nutrient
uptake, and overall root production. Root growth of the same cultivar can vary with soil
texture. Therefore, it is critical to determine the impact of soil properties on different production
systems related to water regime along with rice cultivar. The objective of this study was to
assess the effects of water regimes, rice cultivar, and soil texture on rice grain yields, yield
components and water productivity in a greenhouse trial.
Material and Methods
The pot experiment was established at the greenhouse of the (...truncated)