Abstract:

Under the high water consumption pressure of wheat-maize cropping pattern, the cotton production area in southern Hebei is facing groundwater deficit and ecological deterioration problems. For this reason, there is demand for the improvement of water use efficiency and enhancement in local cotton field. The purpose of this research was to evaluate and select the optimum cotton cropping system, which could improve water use efficiency, alleviate water stress and achieve ecological restoration of soil moisture. This research designed five cotton multiple cropping patterns, and adopted comparative analysis of water use efficiency in these cropping models. Results showed that: the pepper/cotton intercropping pattern gained the highest EWUE 60.29 yuan/(mm?hm2), followed by the potato/cotton intercropping pattern. Therefore, these two cotton planting patterns were suggested to be applied to practical cotton production. All the five cotton cropping patterns maintained the field annual water balance. The pepper/cotton intercropping pattern played a good role of ecological compensation in groundwater resource. The rye-cotton rotation pattern and alfalfa/cotton intercropping pattern had comparative advantage of deep water utilization.