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Nutrient Management Strategies for Sloping Lands in Guizhou

IPNI-1999-CHN-GZ11

Overview Related Interpretive Summary
07 Jun 2001

1999 Annual Interpretive Summary


Nutrient management strategies sloping lands project in Guizhou province, 1999

The objective of this project is to quantitatively evaluate the effectiveness of the alley cropping on reduction of soil and K loss and to develop a balanced fertilizer program specifically for the regions with erosive soils and landscapes in the southwest China focusing on Guizhou province. Day lily+Chinese prickly ash (D+C) and polygonum cymosum trev + pear tree (P+P) were selected as two patterns of hedgerow crops and engineering terrace (ET) was used as comparison treatment. Effect of balanced fertilizers (BF) and farmers’ practice (FP) on soil erosion was also examined.

Balanced fertilizers alone or in combination with the two patterns of alley cropping treatments significantly increased corn yield by about 35% as compared to the farmers’ practice. Soil erosion for BF, BF+D+C, and BF+P+P vs. farmers’ practice was dramatically reduced to 53.5, 47.9 and 35.2 t/ha or 47.%, 53.9% and 65.6%, respectively. Though BF+ET treatment could reduce soil loss by 15% on the basis of BF, it reduced crop yield by 22.4%. It is found that during the crop season, the slowly available portion of soil K was always decreasing regardless whether or not the fertilizers were balanced. The soil readily available K increased/decreased in all the plus/minus K treatments. The soil K lost through runoff appeared to be stunting, ranging from 14.8 to 23.1 mg/l in different treatments with the highest in the farmers’ practice. The research data are very valuable in future soil and water conservation and in nutrient management in sloping lands. GUIZHOU-NMS03