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| Distribution of soil moisture in Malus pumila and Glycine max intercropping system and its impact on the soybean growth |
| Liao Wenchao,Bi Huaxing,Zhao Yunjie,Xu Huasen,Gao Lubo,Chang Yifang |
| College of Soil and Water Conservation,Beijing Forestry University,Key Lab. of Soil & Water Conservation and Desertification Combating of Ministry of Education,100083,Beijing,China |
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Abstract and crop intercropping is the primary mode of agroforestry system in the Loess Plateau of western Shanxi Province. An experiment was conducted to study the spatial distribution of soil moisture in different ages of Malus pumila + Glycine max intercropping systems and its impact on the growth of soybean. Results indicated that:1)in different ages of M. pumila + G. max intercropping systems, soil moisture content increased with the increase of soil depth in vertical direction as well as the distance to the tree row in horizontal direction;2)as for the total soil moisture content, it showed a regular order of 8-year-old intercropping system > 4-year-old intercropping system > 6-year-old intercropping system. Specifically, soil moisture content of the 8-year-old intercropping system was 3.13% higher than that of the 4-year-old intercropping system and 10.38% higher than that of the 6-year-old intercropping system; 3)the height, biomass and yield of soybeans decreased gradually along with the aging of the trees. It was shown that soybeans in the 8-year-old intercropping system were most severely affected by the tree age. We suggest that farmers increase the distance of fruit trees to crops or stop planting crops in 8-year-old apple orchards.
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Received: 10 September 2013
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