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Estimation of irrigation requirements for drip-irrigated maize in a subhumid

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Article  in  Journal of Integrative Agriculture · February 2018

DOI: 10.1016/S2095-3119(17)61833-1

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RESEARCH ARTICLE

Estimation of irrigation requirements for drip-irrigated maize in a

subhumid climate

LIU Yang1, 2, 3, YANG Hai-shun3, LI Jiu-sheng2, LI Yan-feng2, YAN Hai-jun1

1
College of Water Resources and Civil Engineering, China Agricultural University, Beijing 100083, P.R.China
2
State Key Laboratory of Simulation and Regulation of Water Cycle in River Basin, China Institute of Water Resources and
Hydropower Research, Beijing 100048, P.R.China
3
Department of Agronomy and Horticulture, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Lincoln 68503, United States

Abstract
Drip-irrigation is increasingly applied in maize (Zea mays L.) production in sub-humid region. It is critical to quantify irrigation
requirements during different growth stages under diverse climatic conditions. In this study, the Hybrid-Maize model was
calibrated and applied in a sub-humid Heilongjiang Province in Northeast China to estimate irrigation requirements for drip-
irrigated maize during different crop physiological development stages and under diverse agro-climatic conditions. Using
dimensionless scales, the whole growing season of maize was divided into diverse development stages from planting to
maturity. Drip-irrigation dates and irrigation amounts in each irrigation event were simulated and summarized in 30-year
simulation from 1981 to 2010. The maize harvest area of Heilongjiang Province was divided into 10 agro-climatic zones
based on growing degree days, arid index, and temperature seasonality. The simulated results indicated that seasonal
irrigation requirements and water stress during different growth stages were highly related to initial soil water content and
distribution of seasonal precipitation. In the experimental site, the average irrigation amounts and times ranged from 48
to 150 mm with initial soil water content decreasing from 100 to 20% of maximum soil available water. Additionally, the
earliest drip-irrigation event might occur during 3- to 8-leaf stage. The water stress could occur at any growth stages of
maize, even in wet years with abundant total seasonal rainfall but poor distribution. And over 50% of grain yield loss could
be caused by extended water stress during the kernel setting window and grain filling period. It is estimated that more
than 94% of the maize harvested area in Heilongjiang Province needs to be irrigated although the yield increase varied (0
to 109%) in diverse agro-climatic zones. Consequently, at least 14% of more maize production could be achieved through
drip-irrigation systems in Heilongjiang Province compared to rainfed conditions.

Keywords: drip irrigation, irrigation requirements, maize, agro-climatic regionlization, crop simulation, sub-humid climate

Received 27 May, 2017 Accepted 13 October, 2017
LIU Yang, E-mail: liuyang.ailove@163.com; Correspondence LI
Jiu-sheng, Tel: +86-10-68786545, E-mail: lijs@iwhr.com; YAN
Hai-jun, Tel: +86-10-62737196, E-mail: yanhj@cau.edu.cn
© 2018 CAAS. Publishing services by Elsevier B.V. All rights
reserved.
doi: 10.1016/S2095-3119(17)61833-1
1. Introduction
Heilongjiang Province has the largest maize area and
production in China, accounting for 15 and 16% of national
maize area and production, respectively (NBSC 2015),
playing an important role in national food security. In
Heilongjiang Province, the dominant climate is temperate
 LIU Yang et al. Journal of Integrative Agriculture 2018, 17(3): 60345-7
sub-humid continental monsoon, where winter is long, cold,
and dry with a short but warm and wet summer growing
season. The total seasonal precipitation in Heilongjiang
Province usually meets the water demand for maize in
most years but poor rainfall distribution in relation to crop
water demand often leads to crop water stress at critical
stages (e.g., kernel setting, grain filling, etc.), resulting in
reduced yields. Less than 10% of the maize sown area
is irrigated and on-farm maize yields were, on average,
only 51% of the potential yields in this region (Liu et al.
2012b, 2016). Moreover, the rain-fed maize yield is low
and unstable in areas with lower precipitation (Liu et al.
2016). Consequently, effective irrigation could improve
maize production and narrow yield gaps between rainfed
and irrigated conditions in Northeast China (Liu et al. 2012b;
Liu C et al. 2017).
Drip irrigation is one of the most efficient methods of
irrigation/fertigation in terms of application efficiency and
reducing soil evaporative losses (Irmak et al. 2016). In
recent years, drip irrigation has widely been applied to
maize production in sub-humid regions like North China
Plain (Wang et al. 2014), Northeast China (Liu et al. 2015),
and Central US (Lamm and Trooien 2003; Irmak et al. 2016)
due to its advantages of precise application in amount
and at location throughout the field and effectiveness in
improving water and nitrogen use efficiency compared
to other irrigation methods (Bar-Yosef 1999; Guan et al.
2013). After ten years of research in Kansas in USA,
Lamm and Trooien (2003) concluded that irrigation water
used for corn can be reduced by 35 to 55% when using
subsurface drip irrigation compared with traditional irrigation.
For drip-irrigation management in the field (e.g., irrigation
frequency, amounts, etc.), several methods are commonly
used including readings from soil moisture sensors (Leib
et al. 2003), monitoring of crop water stress index (Jackson
et al. 1981), and estimating crop evapotranspiration (Allen
et al. 1989). Although those methods can be used at field
level, they do not allow easy estimation of regional irrigation
requirements at larger spatial scales, e.g., for a province
like Heilongjiang Province due to variations in climate, crop
systems, management practices and soil types.
Crop growth modeling can potentially be a good method
to estimate the water and nutrient managements under
varying weather and soil conditions (Boote et al. 1996).
Some simulation models (e.g., CERES-Maize, AquaCrop,
APSIM, RZWQM, Hybrid-Maize, etc.) have been tested
to simulate crop yield, evapotranspiration and water
management strategies for maize in arid or semi-arid regions
(Abedinpour et al. 2012; Jiang et al. 2016). Abedinpour
et al. (2012) evaluated the performace of the FAO AquaCrop
model for maize crop in a semi-arird region and the results
showed that the model predicted maize yield with acceptable
3
accuracy under variable irrigation and nitrogen levels. The
Hybrid-Maize model (Yang et al. 2014, 2016) has also been
widely tested under rainfed and irrigated conditions and
applied to the U.S. corn-belt (Grassini et al. 2009, 2011;
Morell et al. 2016), South Asia (Timsina et al. 2010), and
North China (Hou et al. 2014a; Bu et al. 2015). Liu et al.
(2012a) evaluated the Hybrid-Maize model to simulate maize
growth and yield in a semi-arid Loess Plateau and applied
the model to assess effects of meterological variations
on the performance of maize under rainfed and irrigated
conditions. According to the simulations, the average rainfed
yield was 1 830 kg ha−1 less than the average potential yield
with irrigation. In contrast, there were few studies that have
used models to simulate water and nitrogen strategies for
maize in sub-humid regions (Liu et al. 2013; Zhang et al.
2015). Jiang et al. (2016) used long-term weather data
to simulate the effects of different irrigation treatments on
maize yield and water use efficiency and recommended
the total irrigation amounts regardless of the rainfall each
season. Using the calibrated CERES-Maize model, He et al.
(2012) identified the best irrigation management practices
for sweet corn production on sandy soils, which indicated
that irrigation frequency had a strong influence on sweet
corn yield. However, crop water requirements varied from
different physiological stages and the effects of water stress
on growth and yield during different growth stages might
also differ (Jones and Kiniry 1986; Kozak et al. 2005). Liu
Y et al. (2017) simulated the sensitivity of maize to water
at varied stages and the simulation results indicated that
the descending order was pollen shedding and silking,
tasselling, jointing, initial grain filling, germination, middle
grain filling, late grain filling, and end of grain filling. In
Florida, He et al. (2012) found corn growth suffered water
stress and the simulated yield was reduced if irrigation
events were triggered when the maximum allowable
depletion of soil water content was greater than 60%. In
practice, a substantial number of fields (55% of total) had
water supply in excess of that required to achieve yield
potential (Grassini et al. 2011). Analysis results in the
Western U.S. Corn Belt also indicated that up to 32% of
the annual water volume allocated to irrigated maize in the
region could be saved with little yield penalty (Grassini et al.
2011). Such research on estimating irrigation requirements
during mazie water-sensitive stages was helpful to reduce
water supply and improve irrigation schedules to be more
synchronous with crop water requirements.
For regional upscaling, irrigation requirements (e.g.,
irrigation timing and amounts) could be estimated with
consideration of soil water content at sowing stage, crop
water requirements at different stages, crop management
practices, cultivar maturity, plant population, soil type, and
climate characteristics at diverse agro-climatic zones for
4 LIU Yang et al. Journal of Integrative Agriculture 2018, 17(3): 60345-7
providing irrigation guidance (Amarasingha et al. 2015;
He and Cai 2016). However, data collection at a large
number of locations is expensive and time-consuming. The
minimum number of locations was required to achieve robust
estimates at larger spatial scales. An issue is the ability of
crop models to predict local and regional actual yield and
total production without need of site-year specific calibration
of internal parameters associated with fundamental
physiological processes (Morell et al. 2016). van Bussel
et al. (2015) described an approach that consists of a climate
zonation scheme supplemented by agronomical and locally
relevant weather, soil and cropping system data. Variation
in simulated yield potentials among weather stations located
within the same climate zone can be represented by the
coefficient of variation and served as a measure of the
performance of the climate zonation scheme for upscaling
(van Bussel et al. 2015; Morell et al. 2016). Therefore, crop
simulation models can be used to predict local to regional
maize yields and total production (Morell et al. 2016). In
the same way, more research on scaling up location-specific
drip-irrigation requirements estimates under diverse agro-
climatic zones will assist establishment of better drip-
irrigation management strategies for maximizing maize
production in China.
The objectives of this study were to: (1) estimate
drip-irrigation requirements during different physiological
development stages of maize using model simulation, and
(2) evaluate the difference of irrigation amounts for drip-
irrigated maize under diverse agro-climatic conditions in
sub-humid region of Northeast China.
2. Materials and methods
2.1. Field experiment
A field experiment was conducted for three years (2011,
2012 and 2013) at a research experimental station (45°22´N,
125°45´E, 220 m above sea level) located in Harbin,
Heilongjiang Province, Northeast China. The region has
a sub-humid climate with a long-term (from 1980 to 2010)
average seasonal (May to September) mean air temperature
of 20.5°C and average seasonal rainfall of 421 mm. The
dominant soil texture is silt (Shirazi and Boersma 1984)
(Table 1). At three locations of the field, undisturbed soil
samples were taken at three depth intervals (0 to 20 cm, 20
Table 1 Basic soil properties of experimental field
Depth Bulk density Organic matter content
Texture
(cm) (g cm–3) (g kg–1)
0–20 Silt 1.28 31.6
20–40 Silt 1.29 25.5
40–80 Silt 1.35 18.1
to 40 cm, and 40 to 80 cm) for measurements of bulk density,
field capacity following the method by Veihmeyer and
Hendrickson (1949), and wilting point at 1.5 MPa pressure
using a centrifugal method (CR 21GII, Hitachi, Japan)
(Table 1). Daily weather data, including maximum and
minimum temperature, relative humidity, wind speed, and
sunshine hours were obtained from an automatic weather
station located approximately 500 m from the experimental
field while rainfall data were collected manually from four
rain gauges installed at each corner of the field.
Prior to planting, the field was prepared to have ridges of
1 m wide with 0.3 m wide furrows in between (Fig. 1). Two
rows of maize were seeded on each ridge with a spacing
of 0.5 m. Each plot had eight rows of maize. Maize was
planted on May 5 in 2011, May 4 in 2012, and May 9 in 2013.
A similar plant spacing of 0.33 m along a row was used for
the three growing seasons, and the resultant plant density
was about 46 620 plants ha–1. After planting and before
emergence, a dripline was laid in the middle of two rows on
each ridge and a 1.2 m-wide strip of plastic film of 0.008 mm
thick was laid to cover the driplines and the soil surface
(Fig. 1). Immediately after emergence, an opening of about
5 cm in diameter was manually punched in the plastic film
at the position where a plant emerged to allow the plant to
come through the mulch. Pest and weed control followed
conventional practices in the region. The maize was
harvested on September 15 in 2011, September 27 in 2012,
and September 25 in 2013. After harvest, plastic films and
maize stalks were removed from the field (Liu et al. 2015).
The emitters of the drip lines had a spacing of 0.3 m
(IrriGreen Ltd., Beijing, China) and a nominal flow rate of
2.0 L h–1 at 0.1 MPa. For irrigation management, a target
wetting depth of 40, 50, 70 and 60 cm was used for the initial
(emergence to 6-leaf), establishment (6-leaf to tasseling),
mid-season (tasseling), and late season stages (effective
grain filling), respectively (Allen et al. 1998). Irrigation was
applied whenever average soil water content in the target
wetted depth depleted to around 60% of the field capacity
(Liu et al. 2015). The amount of irrigation was determined
to replenish to 85% of the field capacity of the target wetting
soil depth. The field received 349 mm of rainfall and 35 mm
of irrigation in 2011 growing season, 515 mm of rainfall and
70 mm of irrigation in 2012 growing season, and 569 mm
of rainfall and 45 mm of irrigation in 2013 growing season.
Compared with 30-year (1981 to 2010) historical seasonal
Soil water content at 33 kPa Soil water content at 1 500 kPa
(cm3 cm–3) ( cm3 cm–3)
0.35 0.20
0.36 0.20
0.38 0.20
 LIU Yang et al. Journal of Integrative Agriculture 2018, 17(3): 60345-7
15 cm
130 cm
Ridge Dripline
Fig. 1 Schematic diagram of the cropping pattern and lateral layout of the driplines under the plastic mulch used for maize.
rainfall of the same period, it was wet for each season
except 2011 season (Liu et al. 2015). All plots received a
basal application of 54 kg ha–1 of N and 138 kg ha–1 of P2O5
in the form of diammonium phosphate and 81 kg ha–1 of
K2O in the form of potassium sulfate prior to planting in the
2011 and 2012 seasons, but no basal fertilizers in 2013.
Besides the basal application, a total of 150 kg ha–1 of N of
urea was applied through drip irrigation equally during the
8- to 12-leaf stage, tasseling, and blister (R2) stages during
each season (Liu et al. 2015).
For each season, soil samples were taken at five depths
of 0 to 10 cm, 10 to 20 cm, 20 to 40 cm, 40 to 60 cm, and
60 to 80 cm in each plot 12 days after planting as well as
at harvest to obtain the initial and final soil water contents,
respectively. Specifically, the soil samples were taken from
the middle of two central rows of each plot. Soil samples
at depths of 0 to 10 cm, 10 to 20 cm, 20 to 40 cm, 40 to 60
cm, and 60 to 80 cm were also collected three to seven days
before and after each irrigation event to obtain the seasonal
change of water content in the soil. Soil samples were dried
at 105°C to a constant weight to determine gravimetrical
water content. In this study, soil water content of the total
profile (0 to 120 cm) was calculated by accumulating soil
water content of each layer. The average soil water content
at depth of 80 to 120 cm was assumed to be the same as
the average at depth of 60 to 80 cm due to minor difference
beyond 60-cm depth based on experimental observations
(Liu Y et al. 2017).
Plant height and leaf area index (LAI) were measured
in three 13-m sections of the four center rows in each plot.
In each section, three average plants were marked for the
measurement of plant height and LAI at jointing, silking and
around blister stages. For LAI measurements, the length
and the maximum width of each leaf were recorded. In
addition, the actual area for 15 typical leaves selected other
than the marked plants were measured using coordinate
grids. A linear regression between the actual area and the
product of the length and width of the leaf was obtained
for each measurement. The product of the leaf length and
width for the three marked plants was then converted to the
5
50 cm 80 cm
Plastic film mulch
30 cm
100 cm
actual leaf area using the linear regression model. Finally,
LAI was calculated by dividing the total actual leaf area of
the three marked plants by the ground area.
For aboveground biomass, three average plants were
collected in each plot by clipping the plant at the soil
surface. The stalks and ears of three plants were harvested
separately in each plot at maturity. All plant samples were
oven-dried at 70°C to a constant weight (Liu Y et al. 2017).
For grain yield (GY) determination, maize ears were
hand-harvested from four approximately equally distributed
locations of six consecutive plants per location (totally 24
plants) in each plot and grain yield was expressed at a
moisture content of 14%.
2.2. Model description
The Hybrid-Maize model is a process-based model that
simulates maize development and growth on a daily time-
step under growth conditions without limitations from nutrient
deficiencies, toxicities, insect pests, diseases, or weeds
(Yang et al. 2004, 2006). The Hybrid-Maize model requires
daily weather variables including solar radiation, maximum
and minimum air temperature to simulate corn stages
and dry matter accumulation and requires precipitation,
wind speed and humidity in order to simulate crop water
uptake and soil water balance. In Hybrid-Maize model,
photosynthetically active radiation interception (PARi) and
gross assimilation are described according to formulations
in WOFOST (Boogaard et al. 2014). The PARi and its
corresponding CO2 assimilation are computed for each layer
in the canopy. Total gross assimilation is then obtained by
integration over all layers. Using L to represent the depth
of canopy with L=0 at the top and L=LAI at the bottom of
the canopy, the PARi at position L in the canopy equals the
decrease of PAR at that depth. Calculation of PAR was
as eq. (1):
dPAR
PARi, L= =0.5Ike−kL (1)
dL 
Where, PARi, L is the PAR interception by the canopy
layer at position L, I is the incoming total solar radiation
6 LIU Yang et al. Journal of Integrative Agriculture 2018, 17(3): 60345-7
and k is the light extinction coefficient. The corresponding
CO2 assimilation by that layer follows a saturation function
of the form:
AL=Am(1−e−εPARi, L/Am) (2)
Where, AL is the CO2 assimilation by the canopy layer at
L, Am is the maximum gross CO2 assimilation rate (g CH2O
m–2 leaf h–1), and ε is the initial light use efficiency (g CO2
MJ–1 PAR). The CO2 assimilation by the whole canopy is
obtained by integration of eq. (2) along L:
LAI
A= ∫ A (1−e−εPARi, L/Am)dL (3)
m stress equals 0 and 1, respectively.
L=0
Where, A is the gross CO2 assimilation of the canopy
(g CO2 m–2 ground h–1). Two numerical integration methods
are available in the model. The default method, which was
used in all the simulations of this study is the three-point
Gaussian method (Goudriaan 1986). Alternatively, a user
can choose the standard Simpson’s rule with a user-defined
precision.
In the special version of the Hybrid-Maize model for this
study, the heating effect by plastic film mulching was taken
into account for growing degree days (GDD) above 10°C
(GDD10) accumulation before 6-leaf stage as the maize
growing point remains below soil surface until then (Ritchie
et al. 1992; Hou et al. 2014a; Liu Y et al. 2017). After 6-leaf
stage, no heating effect of plastic film mulching is considered
as the maize growing point has risen above soil surface and
is supposed to be outside the plastic film.
The model simulates separately soil evaporation and
crop transpiration, as well as other losses including surface
runoff, canopy interception, and drainage below crop rooting
depth. The model simulates progression of crop rooting
depth based on GDD accumulation and the maximum
rooting depth is reached shortly after silking. The crop
is assumed to take up water only from the active rooting
zone and crop water uptake is related to water content and
hydraulic conductivity. The whole rooting zone is divided
into layers of 10 cm, and water balance is computed layer
by layer from the top to bottom (0 to 120 cm) based on the
principle of tipping bucket method (Yang et al. 2004).
Actual soil evaporation is estimated using the 2-step
evaporation scheme as Allen et al. (1998). According to
this scheme, soil evaporation occurs within the top 10 cm
soil depth, and the evaporation rate will be constant at its
maximum when soil is wet (i.e., more than 70% of readily
evaporate water), followed by a decreasing rate before
evaporation ceases at the half of permanent wilting point.
Considering the plastic film breakage (including punching
holes for emergence) during the growing season, average
soil surface coverage rate of the plastic film mulching
treatment is set as 50% of bare soil (Liu et al. 2015). Crop
actual transpiration (Transpactual) is the smaller one between
the maximum water uptake by roots from all layers where
roots are present and the maximum demand for transpiration
(Transpmax) estimated from weather conditions (Yang et al.
2004).
For simulating irrigation requirements with drip irrigation,
irrigation was called in the model whenever crop water stress
starts to appear on a daily basis. Water stress index was
expressed as:
Transpactual
Water stress=1− (4)
Transpmax 
The crop suffers no stress and full stress when water
The maximum amount of water that can be applied in
each irrigation event was set at 30 mm for drip irrigation in
this study and the irrigation target soil water content in top
30 cm was set at 85% of the field capacity.
2.3. Model calibration
The Hybrid-Maize model was calibrated using the observed
data of 2012 for soil water content over the rooting depth,
LAI, aboveground dry matter, and grain yield. The potential
kernel number per ear and light extinction coefficient were
selected for calibration, because they are more hybrid-
specific and the model’s default values are more suited to
North American hybrids instead of those common in China.
Maize hybrids in North American are more suited to higher
maize plant densities (more than 60 000 plants ha–1) and
tend to have smaller and more vertical leaves, and smaller
ears and fewer kernels, while hybrids of smallholder fields
in China are more suited to lower densities (less than 60
000 plants ha–1) and tend to be the opposite in terms of
leaf angle and ear size (Russel et al. 1989; Girardin and
Tollennaar 1994; Otegui 1995; Shi et al. 2016).
For the potential number of kernels per ear, the default
value of 675 was increased to 800 for better simulation
results for hybrids used in this study (Yang et al. 2004).
Such an adjustment was also suggested by Jones and Kiniry
(1986). Similarly, the default light extinction coefficient (k)
of 0.55 was calibrated to 0.75, which is still within the range
of possible value for maize k (Maddonni et al. 2001; Lizaso
et al. 2003; Lindquist et al. 2005). The calibrated model
was then tested and validated using data of 2011 and 2013.
2.4. Model application
Estimating irrigation requirements during different
growth stages at the experimental site The calibrated
Hybrid-Maize model was applied to estimate the irrigation
requirements (irrigation dates and amounts) during different
crop stages for mulched and drip-irrigated maize using
30-year historical weather data (1981 to 2010) at the
experimental site. The historical weather data were acquired
from local meteorological bureau whose station was within
 LIU Yang et al. Journal of Integrative Agriculture 2018, 17(3): 60345-7 7

20 km from field. The simulated results included daily maize
growth variables, crop stages, LAI, total biomass, crop
evapotranspiration (ETc), irrigation requirements (irrigation
dates and amounts), and final grain yield. The initial soil
water available content (ISWC) was set as 20, 40, 60, 80,
and 100% of maximum soil available water content in the
root zone (the soil water content between field capacity and
permanent wilting point), respectively. The date of the first
drip-irrigation event was also simulated and analyzed. The
hybrid-specific input parameters of the applied model were
the same as the field experiment in this study. The planting
time was set as May 1 for all 30-year simulations because
local farmers usually planted maize around the period from
the end of April to the start of May.
Besides the phenology stages based on leaf numbers
and kernel filling progression, crop development stage was
also expressed using a dimensionless scale from 0 (planting
time) to 1.0 (tasseling) to 2.0 (physiological maturity)
(Lindquist et al. 2005). Before to silking, the numerical scale
stage is the ratio of up-to-date total GDD since planting to
the total GDD at silking; after silking, it is the ratio of the up-
to-date total GDD since silking to the total GDD from silking
to physiological maturity plus one. The correspondence of
the phenology stages and the numerical stage is: planting
to 6-leaf stage (V6; 0 to 0.43), V6 to 10-leaf stage (V10;
0.43 to 0.71), V10 to tasseling stage (VT; 0.71 to 1.00), VT
to milk stage (R3; 1.00 to 1.27), R3 to dent stage (R5; 1.27
to 1.67), and R5 to physiological maturity (R6;1.67 to 2.00).
In this study, the kernel setting window corresponds to the
numerical stage of 0.87 to 1.13. The kernel setting window
(about 4-week bracketing silking), one of the most water-
critical stage for maize, was considered specially in this
study. The number of kernels was determined during this
period, influencing the potential size of storage organ (i.e.,
the sink). The maize can lose kernels permanently due to
water stress during this stage. In the Hybrid-Maize model,
the kernel setting window was defined from 170 GDD8 (i.e.,
8°C based) before silking to 170 GDD8 after silking (Yang
et al. 2004, 2006).
The effects of water stress during different crop stages
on grain yield and aboveground biomass were also studied
through five drip-irrigation scenarios: (1) full irrigation, (2)
no irrigation before kernel setting window, (3) no irrigation
during kernel setting window, (4) no irrigation after kernel
setting window, and (5) no irrigation at all (i.e., rainfed
condition). For simulating the effects on different rainfall
distributions, six typical weather years in the experimental
area were chosen from 30-year historical weather data
according to seasonal rainfall amounts, including two dry
years (1989 and 2007), two normal years (1997 and 2003),
and two wet years (1987 and 1998). The ISWC was set as
40% in this part of study.
Classification of agro-climatic zones in Heilongjiang
Province Geospatial distributions of harvested areas of
maize in Heilongjiang Province (Fig. 2-A and 2-B) were
derived from the global Spatial Production Allocation Model
(SPAM2005, You et al. 2014). SPAM2005 provides gridded
data (5 arcmin resolution, approximately 10 km×10 km at
the equator) on annual harvested area averaged for years
around 2000 for 20 major staple crops. SPAM2005 was
selected because it applies a consistent methodology using
available data on harvested crop area to derive global

A 122°E 124°E 126°E 128°E 130°E 132°E 134°E 136°E 138°E B 122°E 124°E 126°E 128°E 130°E 132°E 134°E 136°E 138°E

N N
52°N Meteorological station 52°N
Meteorological station No weather data (T1W6, T1W7, T2W6, T3W4)
54°N Harvested area 54°N T1W3 T2W2 T3W1
High T1W4 T2W3 T3W2
Low 50°N T1W5 T2W4 T3W3 50°N
T2W5
52°N 0 50 100 200 300 400 52°N
km 0 50 100 200 300 400
km
48°N 48°N
50°N 50°N

46°N 46°N
48°N 48°N

44°N 44°N
46°N 46°N

120°E 122°E 124°E 126°E 128°E 130°E 132°E 120°E 122°E 124°E 126°E 128°E 130°E 132°E

Fig. 2 Schematic diagram of the harvested area of maize (A) and agro-climatic zones distribution (B) in Heilongjiang Province,
China. T and W indicated levels of growing degree days (GDD) and arid index, respectively.
8 LIU Yang et al. Journal of Integrative Agriculture 2018, 17(3): 60345-7
spatially disaggregated harvested area maps (van Bussel
et al. 2015).
In order to up-scale location-specific estimates of maize
yield and seasonal irrigation requirements to regional levels,
the major maize areas were divided into agro-climatic zones
(CZs) according to the method by van Wart et al. (2013). A
matrix of three categorical variables were used to delineate
CZs for harvested area of maize: GDD, arid index (W), and
temperature seasonality. Consequently, main maize harvest
areas in Heilongjiang Province was divided into 10 CZs
(Fig. 2). Among them, there were three levels of GDD (T1
to T3), seven levels of W (W1 to W7) and one temperature
seasonality. The GDD and the W became greater when T
increased from T1 to T3 and W decreased from W5 to W1,
respectively. In each CZ, the maize production (MP, kg)
was estimated by:
MP=GY×HA  (5)
Where, GY was the grain yield (kg ha–1) and HA was the
harvested area (ha).
In this study, 24 weather stations were selected according
to the method described by van Bessel et al. (2015). The
climate data were obtained from the National Meteorological
Networks of China Meteorological Administration (http://cdc.
cma.gov.cn) (Fig. 2). Each weather station was identified
when the sum of maize harvested area within a 100 km
radius of each weather station in this CZ were above 50%
of the total maize harvested area of this CZ (van Wart et al.
2013; Grassini et al. 2015). Daily weather variables were
acquired from 1981 to 2010 including daily maximum and
minimum air temperature, relative air humidity, precipitation,
sunshine duration, and average wind speed. Sunshine
duration was converted into daily solar radiation using the
Ångström formula method (Jones 1992).
Hybrid-maize information surrounding each weather
station was acquired according to Hou et al. (2014b). Four
GDD maturity levels from total GDD of 1 150 to 1 580°C
days were used in different CZs of Heilongjiang Province
(Table 2). GDD was defined by:
n
T +T
GDD=∑ ( max min )−Tbase (6)
1 2  at maturity (Fig. 3). The reason of overestimation of the
Where, n is days from planting to maturity, Tmax, Tmin, and
Tbase are the maximum temperature, minimum temperature,
and 10°C base temperature, respectively (McMaster and
Wilhelm 1997); a upper cut-off of 30°C is used to set Tmax if
it is greater than 30°C.
The planting date was uniformly set as the same day for
all 30-year simulations on one site but differ across sites.
On each site, the planting date is when the average air
temperature of above 10°C last for one week in the late
April or early May to guarantee the emergence of the seeds.
Maize growth will terminate when it comes to maturity, or by
frost or severe water stress.
The soil data were extracted from the National Soil Atlas
of China (1:14 000 000, ISS 1986). The soil data contained
bulk density of the topsoil, and texture of top and subsoil,
texture, pH and soil organic carbon (SOC) content (i.e., 30
cm in depth) (Table 2). Within the 100 km-diameter scope
of each weather station, the dominant soil type was selected
to represent for an area (Table 2).
2.5. Statistics analysis
Three statistics indices were used to evaluate the simulation
results against field measurements: (i) root mean squared
error (RMSE) as defined in eq. (7); (ii) relative RMSE
(RRMSE) as defined in eq. (8); and (iii) index of agreement
(d-index) as defined in eq. (9), which ranges from 0 to 1 with
1 representing a perfect fit.
n
∑ (Oi −Pi )
2
(7)
RMSE= i=1
n
RMSE
RRMSE(%)= (8)
Oavg 
∑i=1(Oi−Pi )2
n
d=1− (9)
∑i=1( Oi −Oavg + Pi −Oavg )2
n
Where, Oi and Pi are the observed and predicted values,
Oavg is observed averages and n is the number of values.
3. Results
3.1. Model performance
The calibrated Hybrid-Maize model performed reasonably
well for simulating total soil water content in the root zone,
LAI, and aboveground dry matter accumulation in the three
growing seasons from 2011 to 2013. The RRMSE and
d-value were less than 25% and above 0.9, respectively
which were both in the range of acceptance (Table 3). But
the model overestimated the LAI during the early growing
season and underestimated the aboveground dry matter
LAI might be because the function of leaf area expansion
in the Hybrid-Maize model may not fully reflect the cultivars
used in China. The reason for the underestimation of dry
matter at maturity might be that the Hybrid-Maize model
was developed and calibrated (other than the parameters
calibrated in this study) largely for high plant density systems
in North America, leading to underestimation of aboveground
dry matter at maturity for lower density systems in Northeast
China. For grain yield, the calibrated model did well for
2011 and 2012 growing seasons but overestimated for
2013 (Fig. 3) with the d-value being only 0.38 (Table 3),
which might be because the Hybrid-Maize model simulates
 LIU Yang et al. Journal of Integrative Agriculture 2018, 17(3): 60345-7 9

maize growth under optimal management conditions and
as a result it often overestimates crop growth, including leaf
area index and biomass. However in the field experiments,
there might be nutrition deficiencies, especially for nitrogen
as introduced by nitrate leaching. As mentioned earlier, no
basal fertilizer was applied at planting in 2013 and the initial
soil water content at planting was pretty high due to melting
snow of the last winter, which might lead to nitrate leaching
and deficiency (Liu et al. 2015).
3.2. Estimating irrigation requirements at the exper-
imental site
Growing season precipitation and ETc The growing
season precipitation varied from 302 to 786 mm and were
lower than the ETc under fully irrigation conditions that varied
from 467 to 727 mm in 29 out of the 30-year simulation at the
experimental site (Fig. 4). The greatest difference between
the growing season precipitation and ETc was 323 mm
occurring in 1999 and the difference was above 200 mm in
9 years out of the 30-year simulation (Fig. 4). The average
growing season ETc (607 mm) was 32% (146 mm) greater
than the average growing season precipitation (461 mm).
It implied that the average 146 mm of water requirement
for a water stress free maize crop should come from either
soil moisture storage present at planting or supplemental
irrigation. As a consequence, in other words, the irrigation
requirements depends highly on the amount of initial soil

Table 2 Hybrid-maize information and soil properties in agro-climatic zones of Heilongjiang Province, China
Hybrid characters2) Soil properties3)
Agro-climatic
Site Seasonal GDD Sowing date Bulk density Topsoil SOC content
zones1) Texture class
(oC days) (mon-d) (g cm–3) (g kg–1)
T3W1 Tailai 1 580 04-29 Clay 1.38 15.8
T3W2 Zhaozhou 04-28 Loam 1.52 10.8
T3W3 Harbin 05-02 SICL 1.37 31.1
T2W2 Anda 1 380 to 1 580 04-30 SCL 1.36 44.2
Qiqihaer 05-02 Clay 1.37 15.8
T2W3 Fuyu 1 310 to 1 380 05-05 SIL 1.39 25.3
Keshan 05-09 Clay 1.24 40.7
Mingshui 05-05 Loam 1.28 43.1
Jixi 05-08 SCL 1.36 43.8
Mudanjiang 05-03 SL 1.47 24.5
T2W4 Hailun 1 310 to 1 380 05-10 SIL 1.31 34.6
Beilin 05-04 Loam 1.28 53.3
Baoqing 05-06 SL 1.36 38.9
Jiamusi 05-06 SL 1.41 41.1
Tonghe 05-06 Loam 1.29 50.0
Hegang 05-10 SCL 1.36 30.7
Hulin 05-09 SCL 1.40 42.6
Yilan 05-05 SCL 1.45 28.5
Fujin 05-08 SL 1.36 38.9
T2W5 Shangzhi 1 150 to 1 310 05-10 CL 1.37 50.5
Tieli 05-09 SCL 1.32 56.4
T1W3 Nenjiang 1 150 05-12 SL 1.33 38.4
T1W4 Bei’an 1 380 05-10 SIL 1.31 34.6
T1W5 Yichun 1 150 05-13 Loam 1.17 55.1
1)
T and W indicate levels of GDD and arid index, respectively. The GDD and the arid index became greater when T increased from T1
to T3 and W decreased from W5 to W1, respectively.
2)
GDD, growing degree days.
3)
SICL, SCL, SIL, SL, and CL is short for silty clay loam, sandy clay loam, silty loam, sandy loam, and clay loam, respectively. SOC, soil
organic carbon.

Table 3 Statistic analysis of Hybrid-Maize model performance on simulating mulched and drip-irrigated maize of 3-year data1)
Item The number of data points RMSE RRMSE (%) d-index
Soil water storage in the root zone (mm) 69 15.7 4.6 0.99
Leaf area index 52 0.43 17.7 0.99
Dry matter aboveground (t ha–1) 52 0.63 24.4 0.92
Grain yield (t ha–1) 9 0.90 7.4 0.38
1)
RMSE, root mean squared error; RRMSE, relative RMSE.
10 LIU Yang et al. Journal of Integrative Agriculture 2018, 17(3): 60345-7

2011 2012 2013

A 430 B 4
e
lin
1
1:
380
3
Simulated value (mm)

e
lin

Simulated value
1
330 1:
2
280

1
230

180 0
180 230 280 330 380 430 0 1 2 3 4
Observed value (mm) Observed value
C 25 000 D 14
e e
lin lin
Simulated value (kg ha–1)

1
20 000 1:
1 13 1:
Simulated value (t ha–1)

12
15 000
11
10 000
10

5 000
9

0 8
0 5 000 10 000 15 000 20 000 25 000 8 9 10 11 12 13 14
Observed value (kg ha–1) Observed value (t ha–1)

Fig. 3 Comparison of Hybrid-Maize simulation against observations on total soil water storage in 0–120 cm depth (A), leaf area
index (B), total aboveground dry matter accumulation (C) and grain yield (D).

Precipitation Evapotranspiration The simulated on-avearage seasonal irrigation amounts

900 for mulched and drip-irrigated maize decreased from 150
800 to 48 mm with ISWC increasing from 20 to 100% of the
700 maximum soil available water capacity at the experimental
evapotranspiration (mm)

600 site (Table 4). When ISWC was lower than 40%, the maize
Precipitation or

500 might need one drip-irrigation of 10 to 30 mm before V6

400 stage due to occasional spring drought during the seedling
300 establishment while no irrigation is needed when ISWC was
200 greater than 40% (Table 4).
100 During V6 to V10 stages, there was much possibility
0 to irrigate regardless of the level of ISWC. When ISWC
1980 1985 1990 1995 2000 2005 2010
Year was lower than 40%, there were 34 to 41 mm of irrigation
requieements on average (Table 4), while on average 6 to
Fig. 4 Total precipitation and total crop evapotranspiration 22 mm of water is required during this period when ISWC
(ETc) of fully irrigated maize in 30-year (1981 to 2010) growing was greater than 40%. From V10 to R3 stage, there was on
seasons at the experimental site.
average 14 to 36 mm of irrigation water when ISWC varied
from 20 to 100% (Table 4). From R3 to R6 stage, there was
moisture status at planting. on average 28 to 48 mm of irrigation water if ISWC increased
Irrigation requirements during different crop stages from 20 to 100% (Table 4). For kernel setting window, there
 LIU Yang et al. Journal of Integrative Agriculture 2018, 17(3): 60345-7 11

was on average 6 to 15 mm of irrigation water. Among the
30 years from 1981 to 2010, the maximum requirement of
irrigation amounts during kernel setting window was 1999
with 62 mm of water (data not shown).
First drip-irrigation event The first drip-irrigation event
varied from May 5 to June 20 in the 30-year simulations with
the ISWC differing from 20 to 100%. The dates of the first
drip-irrigation event moved later into the season when the
ISWC increased from 20 to 100% (Table 5). The average
date of the first drip-irrigation event varied from June 7 to
July 27 with the ISWC increasing from 20 to 100%. In terms
of crop stage, the first drip-irrigation event varied from V3
to V8 with the ISWC increasing from 20 to 100%, while the
average crop stage of the first drip-irrigation event moved
backward from V5 to silking with the ISWC increasing from
20 to 100%.
The effects of water stress at different stages on grain
yield and aboveground biomass The grain yield and final
aboveground biomass under rainfed conditions decreased
due to water stress (Fig. 5). On average, 73, 52, and
30% of grain dry matter was lost under rainfed conditions
compared to using drip-irrigation in dry, normal, and wet
years, respectively (Fig. 6). In dry year (1989), the crop
can lose more grain yield due to prolonged water stress at
critical stages as crops under rainfed conditions stopped
growth and became pre-matured (Fig. 6). Even in normal
year like 1997, the crops can lose significant grain yield due
to severe water stress during kernel setting window and
resulting in decreased kernel numbers.
Grain yield was affected if no irrigation was provided
before kernel setting window (vegetative stage), especially
when the rainfall was less well distributed during vegetative
stages like 1997 (Figs. 5 and 6). However, the effects
of no irrigation during vegetative stage were greater on
aboveground biomass than grain yield. For example, in
1997, water stress without irrigation before kernel setting
window led to a loss of 33% (7.0 t ha–1) in total biomass but
23% (3.1 Mg ha–1) in grain yield (Fig. 6).
Irrigation during kernel setting window was critical when
the ISWC was relatively low and rainfall during vegetative
stage was less (Fig. 5). For example, even in the wet year
of 1998, the crops lost 13% (1.6 t ha–1) of grain yield when no
irrigation was given during kernel setting window, resulting
in a drought during this period (Fig. 6).
Irrigation was very critical to grain filling (reproductive
stages), especially when there were little rainfall distributions
during this period (Fig. 6). For example in the dry year of
2007, without irrigation after kernel setting window led to a
yield loss of 53% (5.6 t ha–1) due to water stress during this
period (Fig. 6-A).
3.3. Evaluating the irrigation requirements for
drip-irrigated maize in diverse climatic conditions
in Heilongjiang Province
Growing season characteristics of different agro-
climatic zones The growing season period varied from 135
to 164 days across different CZs of Heilongjiang Province

Table 4 Thirty-year average irrigation requirements (means±SD) during different crop stages for the experimental site estimated
by the Hybrid-Maize model
Initial soil available Irrigation amounts during different development stages (mm)1)
water content (%) Planting to V6 V6–V10 V10–VT Kernel setting VT–R3 R3–R5 R5–R6 Whole growing
20 27±18 41±29 19±21 15±20 17±20 25±33 23±32 150±71
40 9±14 34±27 16±23 13±21 13±18 21±30 25±32 117±68
60 0 22±21 12±22 9±15 14±19 17±29 23±30 88±63
80 0 10±14 12±21 8±15 9±17 15±30 17±29 62±60
100 0 6±12 6±17 6±13 8±13 13±22 15±29 48±52
1)
V6 and V10 represent the 6- and 10-leaf stages, respectively; VT represents the tasseling stage; R3, R5 and R6 represent the milk,
dent and physiological maturity stages, respectively.

Table 5 First irrigation event and corresponding development stages (DVS) with initial soil water content (ISWC) varying from 20
to 100% using 30-year historical weather data (1981 to 2010) in the experimental area
Earliest date or DVS of the first drip-irrigation event1) Average date or DVS of the first drip-irrigation event
ISWC (%)
Date DVS Date DVS
20 5-May V3 7-June V5
40 2-Jun V5 24-Jun V9
60 8-June V6 5-July V11
80 19-June V8 15-July V15
100 20-June V8 27-July VT
1)
V3, V5, V6, V8, V9, V11 and V15 represent the 3-, 5-, 6-, 8-, 9-, 11- and 15-leaf stages, respectively; VT represents the tasseling
stage.
12 LIU Yang et al. Journal of Integrative Agriculture 2018, 17(3): 60345-7

Rainfall irrigation. Among all the CZs, T3W1 had the lowest
No irrigation before KSW precipitation (361 mm) and the largest ETc (645 mm), which
No irrigation during KSW
No irrigation after KSW means that at least 285 mm of water must be provided
No irrigation at all
0 either from soil water in the root zone or irrigation in order
A 1.4
20 to achieve maximum grain yield. On the contrary, the T1W5
1.2 40
60 zone had the largest average seasonal precipitation (501
1.0

Rainfall (mm)
Water stress

80 mm) and the lowest ETc (363 mm) due to its location in a
0.8 100 mountainous area.
0.6 120
140 Irrigation requirements in different agro-climatic zones Ten
0.4
160 CZs were divided into three levels according to the degree
0.2 180 of irrigation requirement (Table 7). In the CZs of T3W1,
0 200
0 0.5 1.0 1.5 2.0 T3W2 and T2W2, which need a large amount of irrigation,
Crop development stage at least 80 mm of irrigation was needed regardless of the
B 1.4 0 ISWC (Table 7). In the CZs of T3W3, T2W3, and T2W4
20
1.2 40 which need moderate rates of irrigation, at least 30 mm of
1.0 60 irrigation was needed to achieve the highest grain yield even
Rainfall (mm)
Water stress

80
0.8 with the 100% of ISWC. For the CZs of T2W5, T1W3, T1W4
100
0.6 120 and T1W5, little or no irrigation was needed at optimal ISWC.
0.4 140
160
0.2 180
3.3. Effects of irrigation on maize production in dif-
0 200 ferent agro-climatic zones
0 0.5 1.0 1.5 2.0
Crop development stage
0 The effects of irrigation on maize production were not only
C 1.4
20 related to grain yield but also to maize production area. The
1.2 40 CZs of T3W4, T2W3 and T2W4, which require moderate
1.0 60
Rainfall (mm)

rates of irrigation had the largest harvested area within all

Water stress

0.8
0.6
0.4
0.2
0 200
0 0.5 1.0 1.5
Crop development stage
Fig. 5 The dynamic process of water stress with crop
development stage under four scenarios. KSW, kernel setting
window. A, dry year 1989. B, normal year 1997. C, wet year
1987.
(Table 6). With GDD10 increasing from T1 to T3, the growing
period became longer from 138 to 161 days. The CZs of
T3W1 and T3W2 had the longest growing days (161 to 164
days) and greater GDD10 (1 580°C days) due to warmer
climate. In contrast, the CZs of T1W3, T2W5 and T1W5
had the shortest growing days (135 to 136 days) and the
lowest GDD10 (1 150 to 1 310°C days) because of relatively
cooler climate.
From W1 to W5, the seasonal precipitation increased
from 361 to 496 mm and ETc decreased from 645 to 405 mm
(Table 6). All CZs except T1W5, T2W5, and T1W4 had less
seasonal precipitation than ETc (Table 6). This implies that
most of the maize area in Heilongjiang Province requires
80
100 CZs, accounting for 70% of the total harvest area of maize
120
in Heilongjiang Province (Table 8). And the harvested areas
140
160 of CZs that require large and small amounts of irrigation
180 water accounted for 24 and 6% of the total harvested area,
2.0 respectively (Table 8).
Among nine out of all ten CZs, the grain yield was greater
with irrigated systems compared to rainfed conditions except
T1W5 (Fig. 7). The effects of irrigation on grain yield were
greater with higher demands for irrigation water (Fig. 7).
For instance, the CZs of T3W1, T3W2 and T2W2 require
large amount of irrigation water and their average increase
of grain yield using irrigation was 109% (7.1 t ha–1) and 50%
(4.6 t ha–1) with 40 and 100% of ISWC, respectively, higher
than rainfed yield. In contrast, the CZs of T2W5, T1W3,
T1W4 and T1W5 only require a small amount of irrigation
and their grain yield was only 10% (0.8 t ha–1) and 2% (0.2
t ha–1) with 40 and 100% of ISWC, respectively, higher than
rainfed yield (Fig. 7).
For the whole Heilongjiang Province, the total maize
production could rise by at least 42 and 14% with irrigation
systems with 40 and 100% of ISWC, respectively, compared
to rainfed conditions (Table 8). For the CZs of T3W3,
T2W3 and T2W4 which require moderate irrigation, yield
increase could be 56 and 43% of the total maize-production
increase in Heilongjiang Province with 40 and 100% of
 LIU Yang et al. Journal of Integrative Agriculture 2018, 17(3): 60345-7 13

Full irrigation No irrigation before KSW No irrigation during KSW

No irrigation after KSW No irrigation at all

A 14 000

12 000
Grain dry matter (kg ha–1)

10 000

8 000

6 000

4 000

2 000

0
1989 2007 1997 2003 1987 1998
Year
B 25 000
Final aboveground biomass (kg ha–1)

20 000

15 000

10 000

5 000

0
1989 2007 1997 2003 1987 1998
Year

Fig. 6 Grain dry matter (A) and final aboveground biomass (B) under five irrigation scenarios in dry years of 1989 and 2007, normal
years of 1997 and 2003, and wet years of 1987 and 1998. KSW, kernel setting window.

ISWC, respectively (Table 8). For the CZs of T3W1, T3W2
and T2W2 which require tremendous irrigation, production
increase could be 43 and 56% of total maize production
in Heilongjiang with 40 and 100% of ISWC, respectively
(Table 8). In contrast, only 1% increase of maize production
could be increased through irrigation systems in the CZs of
T2W5, T1W3, T1W4 and T1W5 which require little irrigation
(Table 8).
4. Discussion
Heilongjiang Province is located at a typical cool high-
latitude area (43°26´–53°33´N) with the low mean annual air
temperature (from –5 to 5°C), which belongs to tempreate
continental monsoon cilmate. Crop productivity depends
largely on uneven precipitation in summer and fall (Li and
Liu 2006; Song et al. 2013). The effects of supplemental
irrigation on improving maize yield become more critical
due to less precipitation and increased warmer weather
(Shi et al. 2014). In this study, we found that precipitation in
94% of the maize harvested area did not meet the demand
of water for maize in Heilongjiang Province. In addition,
without supplemental irrigation at any development stages,
water stress will develop and affect grain yield because of
poor distribution of precipitation, even in wet years with
total precipitation greater than crop evapotranspiration.
Moreover, the spatial variation in irrigation requirements
is relatively large in sub-humid regions like Heilongjiang
Province due to the East Asian summer monsoon and
related seasonal rain belts, which had significant variability
at intraseasonal, interannual and interdecadal time scales (Li
and Liu 2006). Furthermore, the initial soil available water
before planting is occasionally low due to less precipitation
in winters in monsoon environments. The first supplemental
irrigation event usually comes early (sometimes on seedling
stages) because of dry winter and little precipitation during
14 LIU Yang et al. Journal of Integrative Agriculture 2018, 17(3): 60345-7

Table 6 Thirty-year (1981 to 2010) meteorological attributes (means±SD) during the maize growing seasons (May–September)
in different agro-climatic zones of Heilongjiang Province
Seasonal crop
Agro-climatic zones Growing season length Daily maximum Daily minimum Seasonal precipitation
evapotranspiration
(CZs)1) (days) temperature (°C) temperature (°C) (mm)
(mm)
T3W1 161±7 24.8±0.6 13.7±0.5 361±60 645±29
T3W2 164±8 24.5±0.6 13.3±0.5 404±53 625±28
T3W3 158±5 24.3±0.5 13.4±0.5 459±53 600±33
T2W2 152±7 24.6±0.6 13.8±0.5 386±45 570±28
T2W3 149±6 24.0±0.6 13.1±0.6 434±57 517±30
T2W4 151±6 23.6±0.6 14.1±0.6 449±59 535±29
T2W5 136±7 24.4±0.5 13.1±0.7 491±67 447±30
T1W3 135±5 24.0±0.6 11.8±0.5 406±51 481±19
T1W4 144±4 23.4±0.5 11.7±0.4 454±61 450±23
T1W5 136±4 23.9±0.5 11.4±0.5 501±63 363±22
T1 138±4 23.8±0.5 11.6±0.5 454±58 431±21
T2 147±6 24.2±0.6 13.5±0.6 440±57 517±29
T3 161±6 24.5±0.6 13.5±0.5 408±55 623±30
W1 161±7 24.8±0.6 13.7±0.5 361±60 645±29
W2 158±8 24.6±0.6 13.6±0.5 395±49 598±28
W3 147±5 24.1±0.6 12.8±0.5 433±54 533±27
W4 148±5 23.5±0.6 12.9±0.5 452±60 493±26
W5 136±6 24.2±0.5 12.3±0.6 496±65 405±26
1)
T and W indicate levels of growing degree days (GDD) and arid index, respectively. T1, T2 and T3 represent the average of the zones
with different arid indexes at GDD level of T1, T2 and T3, respectively; W1 to W5 represent the average of the zones with different
GDD levels at a given arid index. The GDD and the arid index became greater when T increased from T1 to T3 and W decreased
from W5 to W1, respectively.

Table 7 Irrigation water requirements (means±SD) in 10 agro-climatic zones which were grouped into three levels based on
irrigation requirement
Irrigation water requirements at different initial soil available water contents of
Degree of irrigation
Agro-climatic zones1) maximum soil available water (mm)
requirement
20% 40% 60% 80% 100%
High T3W1 291±57 240±43 213±43 190±41 174±40
T3W2 215±60 178±56 147±54 124±50 89±41
T2W2 181±42 145±40 118±38 100±35 85±34
Moderate T3W3 153±37 119±35 90±32 62±30 40±24
T2W3 106±45 77±39 56±32 41±27 35±24
T2W4 90±41 89 ±37 63±33 44±26 31±21
Low T2W5 46±24 28±21 17±17 12±13 10±11
T1W3 85±33 50±30 30±23 17±15 11±11
T1W4 42±26 21±18 9±13 4±8 3±7
T1W5 7±8 2±4 0 0 0
1)
T and W indicate levels of growing degree day (GDD) and arid index, respectively. The GDD and the arid index became greater when
T increased from T1 to T3 and W decreased from W5 to W1, respectively.

the early stage of maize (Table 5). Although the impacts of 5. Conclusion

water stress are greater on grain yield during kernel setting
widows and grain filling stages compared to vegetative
stages (Fig. 5), a significant grain yield reduction can still
result from drought during vegetative period at early ear
shoot and ovule development (Claassen and Shaw 1970).
Meanwhile, as a result of global warming, extreme drought
in Northeast China is increasingly interfering with the steady
development of grain production (Xu et al. 2017). Timely
irrigation is critical to achieving potential yield in a sub-humid
Northeast China.
Crop growth modeling was used in sub-humid environments
to estimate the irrigation requirements for drip-irrigated
maize during different crop development stages and to
evaluate the effects of drip irrigation under diverse agro-
climatic conditions in sub-humid region. The following
conclusions were supported by this study:
(1) In sub-humid region with summer monsoon, the
irrigation requirements during different crop stages were
highly related to initial soil water content and seasonal
 LIU Yang et al. Journal of Integrative Agriculture 2018, 17(3): 60345-7 15

Irrigated
15
Rainfed (100% of total soil available water at planting)
Rainfed (40% of total soil available water at planting)
12
Grain yield (t ha–1)

0
T3W1 T3W2 T2W2 T3W3 T2W3 T2W4 T2W5 T1W3 T1W4 T1W5
High Moderate Low
Agro-climatic zones

Fig. 7 Comparison of grain yield between irrigated and rainfed conditions with initial soil water content accounting for 40 and 100%
of total soil available water in different agro-climatic zones of Heilongjiang Province, China. T and W indicate levels of GDD and
arid index, respectively. Vertical bars are SD between historical year.

Table 8 Comparison of maize production between irrigated and rainfed conditions in different agro-climatic zones of Heilongjiang
Province, China
Maize production (1×103 t)
Degree of
Agro-climatic Maize harvested Rainfed
irrigation
zones1) area (1×103 ha) 40% of total soil available water 100% of total soil available Irrigated
requirement
at planting time water at planting time
High T3W1 35.1 165 242 502
T3W2 154.1 1 248 1 680 2 173
T2W2 409.6 2 744 3 830 5 100
Sum 598.8 4 157 5 752 7 774
Moderate T3W3 131.6 1 198 1 487 1 658
T2W3 591 5 071 6 075 6 702
T2W4 1 041.8 8 821 10 731 11 483
Sum 1 764.4 15 090 18 293 19 843
Low T2W5 69 593 642 666
T1W3 23.5 169 200 207
T1W4 34.4 265 282 282
T1W5 14.6 115 115 115
Sum 141.5 1 142 1 239 1 270
Total 2 504.7 20 389 25 284 28 887
1)
T and W indicate levels of GDD and arid index, respectively. The GDD and the arid index became greater when T increased from T1
to T3 and W decreased from W5 to W1, respectively.

precipitation distributions. A lower initial soil water Acknowledgements

availability requires a larger amount of irrigation water and
an earlier first irrigation event.
(2) The effects of drip irrigation may vary a lot under
different climatic conditions. Overall, irrigation was very
important for maize production in sub-humid regions like
Heilongjiang Province. With drip irrigation, the total maize
production in Heilongjiang Province could increase 14 to
42% (3.6 to 8.5 million tons) compared to rainfed conditions.
This study was financially supported by the Ministry of
Science and Technology of China (2014BAD12B05),
the National Natural Science Foundation of China
(51479211, 51621061) and the Chinese Scholarship Council
(201506350059). Special thanks to the Department of
Agronomy and Horticulture of University of Nebraska-Lincoln
for providing the research opportunities in the USA and
16 LIU Yang et al. Journal of Integrative Agriculture 2018, 17(3): 60345-7
Dr. Liu Zhongyi from China Agricultural University for her
assistance in regional upscaling.
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