Abstract:

The present study was to make clear the reasons affecting the emergence of winter wheat seedling in maize stalk mulching fields in North China Plain. The results indicated that the wheat seedling rates under all treatments of stalk return field declined compared with the traditional tillage pattern (ploughed before sowing, but no stalk mulching). The main five reasons are sorted as sowing too shallow, sowing to deep, physical obstacles by maize stalks, seed moldiness and deficiency or unevenness of soil water, and their priority orders in different tillage patterns were different. The relationships between weight of maize stalk return field (y) and number of wheat seedling (x) could be simulated by power functions y= 4.206x^－7192 (mulched with whole stalks and un-ploughed and y= 509.4x^－0597 (mulched with crushed stalks and un-ploughed).

Key words: Maize stalk return field, Winter wheat, Seedling rate, Tillage pattern