Water uptake patterns of pea and barley responded to drought but not to cropping systems

[摘要] Agricultural production is under threat of water scarcitydue to increasingly frequent and severe drought events under climate change.Whether a change in cropping systems can be used as an effective adaptationstrategy against drought is still unclear. We investigated how plant wateruptake patterns of a field-grown pea–barley ( Pisum sativum L. and Hordeum vulgare L.) mixture, animportant fodder intercrop, responded to experimental drought under fourcropping systems, i.e. organic intensive tillage, conventional intensivetillage, conventional no tillage, and organic reduced tillage. Drought wassimulated after crop establishment using rain shelters. Proportionalcontributions to plant water uptake from different soil layers wereestimated based on stable water isotopes using Bayesian mixing models. Peaplants always took up proportionally more water from shallower depths thanbarley plants. Water uptake patterns of neither species were affected bycropping systems. Both species showed similar responses to the droughtsimulation and increased their proportional water uptake from the shallow soillayer (0–20 cm) in all cropping systems. Our results highlight the impact ofdrought on plant water uptake patterns for two important crop species andsuggest that cropping systems might not be as successful as adaptationstrategies against drought as previously thought.

[学科分类] 大气科学