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Surface mulching and a sandy soil interlayer suppress upward enrichment of salt ions in salt-contaminated field

  • Soils, Sec 2 • Global Change, Environ Risk Assess, Sustainable Land Use • Research Article
  • Published:
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Abstract

Purpose

The suppression effect of a sandy soil interlayer on topsoil enrichment of salt ions was investigated. However, whether this suppression effect was enhanced by surface mulching was little documented. The objectives of this study were to compare the suppression effects under different materials mulching, and to investigate an innovative method to suppress the soil salt ions down-to-top enrichment.

Materials and methods

In this study, the sandy soil layer was pre-positioned at 60–100 cm depth in a salt-contaminated site in advance, achieving the suppression effect on surface enrichment of salt components as expected. Three treatments were herein designed as bare field (CK), plastic film mulching (PM), and maize straw mulching (SM) to examine the dynamics of water and salt movement across soil profiles during the summer with strong evaporation.

Results and discussions

Results showed that total salt content was increased by 21.3 and 8.0% in CK and SM respectively, while decreased by 24.9% in PM at the end of strong evaporation period, comparing with the beginning. Thus, surface mulching further strengthened this suppression effect, but PM displayed better performance than SM did. The data also demonstrated that vertical transport of soil water was much restrained in PM and SM, accordingly inhibiting upward transfer of salt ions. Particularly, sodium adsorption ratio (SAR) ranged from 14.3–265.7, 17.9–147.1, 38.4–147.2 mmol1/2 kg−1/2 at a shallow soil layer (0–60 cm) in CK, PM, and SM, respectively.

Conclusions

The results suggested that sandy soil interlayer settings with plastic mulching are a critical technical strategy for salt-contaminated land reutilization and management.

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Funding

This work is financially supported by International Cooperation Program of Ministry of Science and Technology of China (2015DFG31840), Natural Science Foundation of China (31570415), National Basic Research Program of China (973 Program) (2009CB825101), State Technology Support Program (2015BAD22B04), Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities of China (lzujbky-2015-br02), and Overseas Masters Program of Ministry of Education (Ms2011LZDX059).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. State Key Laboratory of Grassland Agro-ecosystems, School of Life Sciences, Lanzhou University, Lanzhou, 730000, China

    Jianyong Wang, Yingxia Liu, Zhengguo Cheng, Guangqiang Fu, Fei Mo & Youcai Xiong

  2. Institute of Grassland Science/School of Life Sciences, Northeast Normal University, and Key Laboratory of Vegetation Ecology, Ministry of Education, Changchun, 130024, Jilin, China

    Jianyong Wang

  3. Ecological Remote Sensing Department, Satellite Environment Center, Ministry of Environmental Protection of China, Beijing, 100094, China

    Huiming Liu

  4. College of Life Sciences, Shihezi University, Shihezi, 832003, Xinjiang, China

    Shaoming Wang & Youcai Xiong

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  1. Jianyong Wang
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  2. Huiming Liu
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  3. Shaoming Wang
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  4. Yingxia Liu
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  7. Fei Mo
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  8. Youcai Xiong
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Correspondence to Youcai Xiong.

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Responsible editor: Fanghua Hao

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Wang, J., Liu, H., Wang, S. et al. Surface mulching and a sandy soil interlayer suppress upward enrichment of salt ions in salt-contaminated field. J Soils Sediments 19, 116–127 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11368-018-2023-2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11368-018-2023-2

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