Ditch-buried straw return

Information from Haishui Yang about the seminar:

Rice-wheat rotation is the main farming system in the Yangtze River regions, and plays a critical role in maintaining food safety in China. However, some serious issues are emerging during agricultural production, e.g. shallow and stringent ploughing layers, and the limited farming time between the rotation gaps. A novel soil tillage and fertility-building practice, ditch-buried straw return (DB-SR), was designed to overcome such problems. Here, we summarized our current advances from 10-year’s research for DB-SR in the rice-wheat rotation systems. DB-SR showed excellent straw incorporation capability, improvements in soil ecological processes as well as positive effects on pest control, crop growth and final yield performance. Our results suggested that DB-DR is effective in sustaining crop production and has a large potential for extension in the rice-wheat rotation farming regions.