Porous fiber materials can alleviate the risk of farmland drought and flooding disasters and prompt crop growth

Tianling Qin; Shanshan Liu; Wei Li; Shu Xu; Jie Lu; Zhenyu Lv; Sintayehu A Abebe

doi:10.3389/fpls.2023.1201879

Porous fiber materials can alleviate the risk of farmland drought and flooding disasters and prompt crop growth

Front Plant Sci. 2023 Oct 12:14:1201879. doi: 10.3389/fpls.2023.1201879. eCollection 2023.

Authors

Tianling Qin¹, Shanshan Liu¹, Wei Li¹, Shu Xu¹, Jie Lu¹, Zhenyu Lv¹, Sintayehu A Abebe^{1

2}

Affiliations

¹ State Key Laboratory of Simulation and Regulation of Water Cycle in River Basin, China Institute of Water Resources and Hydropower Research, Beijing, China.
² Hydraulic and Water Resources Engineering Department, Debre Markos University Institute of Technology, Debre Markos, Ethiopia.

Abstract

Floods and droughts on farmland seriously damage agricultural production. Porous fiber materials (PFM) made from mineral rocks have high porosity, permeability, and water retention and are utilized widely in green roofs and agricultural production. Therefore, studying the impact of PFM on the improvement of farmland is of great importance for soil and water conservation. We set 64 extreme rainfalls to analyze the impact of PFM on soil water content (SWC), runoff, nutrient loss, microorganism, and plant growth. The results showed that PFM can effectively reduce runoff and improve soil water distribution, and enhance the soil water holding capacity. Furthermore, PFM reduced the loss of nitrogen and phosphorus by 18.3% to 97% in the runoff, and the soil erosion of summer corn was more strongly influenced by lower vegetation cover, compared with winter wheat. Finally, when PFM was buried in the soil, the wheat yield increased by -6.7%-20.4%, but the corn yield in some PFM groups decreased by 5.1% to 42.5% under short-duration irrigation conditions. Our study emphasizes that the effectiveness of PFM depends mainly on the following: First, PFM with high porosity can increase soil water holding capacity and timely replenish the water lost from the surrounding soil. Second, PFM with high permeability can increase infiltration during rainfall and decrease runoff and nutrient loss, reducing the risk of farmland flooding and pollution. Finally, PFM consists of gold ions and alkali metal oxides, which can stabilize agglomerates and improve soil enzyme activity, thereby increasing the relative abundance of some microbial strains and promoting crop growth. However, when the rainfall amount was low or PFM volume was large, PFM could not store water sufficiently during rainfall, which seriously reduced the maximum saturated moisture content and water absorption performance. Meanwhile, the PFM could not release water in time and replenish the soil water deficit, which increased drought risk. In conclusion, the appropriate volume of PFM and irrigation system may enhance soil water storage capacity, minimize agricultural pollution, and promote crop production.

Keywords: crop growth; microorganism; nitrogen and phosphorus loss; rock wool; runoff; soil water content.

Grants and funding

This research was supported by the National Science Fund Project (Grant No. 52130907), the National Science Fund Project for Distinguished Young Scholars (Grant No. 51725905), and the Five Major Excellent Talent Programs of IWHR (WR0199A012021).