Abstract
Water conservation is critical for global maize production, particularly in arid regions where water scarcity, exacerbated by climate change, threatens conventional irrigation sustainability. Optimizing irrigation strategies to reconcile water productivity and yield remains a key scientific challenge in water-limited agriculture. This four-year study (2018–2021) evaluated integrated irrigation management that combined frequency and volume adjustments. A field experiment compared three strategies: high-frequency limited irrigation (HL: 2400 m3·hm−2), low-frequency conventional irrigation (LC: 2400 m3·hm−2), and high-frequency conventional irrigation (HC: 4800 m3·hm−2). The four-year mean yield showed that HL (10,793.78 kg·hm−2) had a non-significant 18.2% numerical advantage over LC (9129.11 kg·hm−2, p > 0.05). The WUE for HL reached 3.63 kg·m−3, representing an 18.6% numerical increase compared to LC (3.06 kg·m−3; p > 0.05). Physiological parameters (plant height + 2.6%, leaf area + 9.9%, SPAD + 1.5%) showed marginal improvements in HL, yet lacked both statistical significance (p > 0.05) and strong yield correlation. Multi-year analyses confirmed no statistically distinguishable differences between strategies (p > 0.05), demonstrating that irrigation frequency adjustments alone cannot reliably enhance drought resilience. These findings caution against advocating for HL as a superior practice, given the statistical equivalence between HL and LC despite water savings, and the non-significant yield gap between HL and HC. Future research must establish causality through models integrating real-time soil–crop–climate feedback prior to recommending altered irrigation regimes.
Abstract from the paper’s OpenAlex record; open copy licensed cc-by. Read at the source ↗
The text the model read, with the source record’s inline markup (italics, sub- and superscripts) rendered and its character entities decoded; quote offsets refer to the raw text.
Claims 9
Claim · model-written summary
Four-year mean maize yield under high-frequency limited irrigation (HL) was numerically 18.2% higher than under low-frequency conventional irrigation (LC), a non-significant difference.
- Treatment
- HLe0
- Outcome
- mean yielde0
- Direction
- numerical advantagee0
- Value
- 18.2%e0
- Comparator
- LCe0
- Setting
- Xinjiangt0
Zea maysOrganisms pictured · Representative pictures of the matched species, not figures from the paper.
Verbatim
e0“The four-year mean yield showed that HL (10,793.78 kg·hm−2) had a non-significant 18.2% numerical advantage over LC”
t0“Maize Yield in Xinjiang”
Claim · model-written summary
Water use efficiency of HL reached 3.63 kg·m−3, an 18.6% numerical increase over LC (3.06 kg·m−3), not significant (p > 0.05).
Organisms pictured · Representative pictures of the matched species, not figures from the paper.
Verbatim
e0“The WUE for HL reached 3.63 kg·m−3, representing an 18.6% numerical increase compared to LC”
t0“Maize Yield in Xinjiang”
Claim · model-written summary
plant height showed a marginal improvement of 2.6% in HL, without statistical significance (p > 0.05).
Not reportedComparator
Organisms pictured · Representative pictures of the matched species, not figures from the paper.
Verbatim
e0“Physiological parameters (plant height + 2.6%, leaf area + 9.9%, SPAD + 1.5%) showed marginal improvements in HL”
t0“Maize Yield in Xinjiang”
Claim · model-written summary
leaf area showed a marginal improvement of 9.9% in HL, without statistical significance (p > 0.05).
Not reportedComparator
Organisms pictured · Representative pictures of the matched species, not figures from the paper.
Verbatim
e0“Physiological parameters (plant height + 2.6%, leaf area + 9.9%, SPAD + 1.5%) showed marginal improvements in HL”
t0“Maize Yield in Xinjiang”
Claim · model-written summary
SPAD showed a marginal improvement of 1.5% in HL, without statistical significance (p > 0.05).
Not reportedComparator
Organisms pictured · Representative pictures of the matched species, not figures from the paper.
Verbatim
e0“Physiological parameters (plant height + 2.6%, leaf area + 9.9%, SPAD + 1.5%) showed marginal improvements in HL”
t0“Maize Yield in Xinjiang”
Claim · model-written summary
Multi-year analyses found no statistically distinguishable differences between the irrigation strategies (p > 0.05).
- Treatment
- strategiese0
- Outcome
- statistically distinguishable differencese0
- Direction
- no statistically distinguishable differencese0
- Setting
- Xinjiangt0
Not reportedComparator
Organisms pictured · Representative pictures of the matched species, not figures from the paper.
Verbatim
e0“Multi-year analyses confirmed no statistically distinguishable differences between strategies”
t0“Maize Yield in Xinjiang”
Claim · model-written summary
The authors conclude that irrigation frequency adjustments alone cannot reliably enhance drought resilience.
- Treatment
- irrigation frequency adjustmentse0
- Outcome
- drought resiliencee0
- Direction
- cannot reliably enhancee0
- Setting
- Xinjiangt0
Not reportedComparator
Organisms pictured · Representative pictures of the matched species, not figures from the paper.
Verbatim
e0“irrigation frequency adjustments alone cannot reliably enhance drought resilience”
t0“Maize Yield in Xinjiang”
Claim · model-written summary
The yield gap between HL and high-frequency conventional irrigation (HC) was non-significant.
Organisms pictured · Representative pictures of the matched species, not figures from the paper.
Verbatim
e0“the non-significant yield gap between HL and HC”
t0“Maize Yield in Xinjiang”
Claim · model-written summary
The authors caution against advocating HL as a superior practice given the statistical equivalence of HL and LC despite water savings.
Organisms pictured · Representative pictures of the matched species, not figures from the paper.
Verbatim
e0“These findings caution against advocating for HL as a superior practice”
t0“Maize Yield in Xinjiang”
The same questions in other papers
irrigation · tolerance: abiotic · Zea mays (maize)Positive and negative results
1 paper in the same direction as this paper · 1 in the opposite direction
- positive
- negative
Claims are grouped by organism, treatment and what was measured or targeted. A paper counts as positive when any of its claims in the group is positive.