title: Reducing soil erosion and nutrient loss on sloping land under crop-mulberry management system.
abstract: Sloping croplands could result in soil erosion, which leads to non-point source pollution of the aquatic system in the Three Gorges Reservoir Region. Mulberry, a commonly grown cash plant in the region, is traditionally planted in contour hedgerows as an effective management practice to control soil erosion and non-point source pollution. In this field study, surface runoff and soil N and P loss on sloping land under crop-mulberry management were investigated. The experiments consisted of six crop-mulberry treatments: Control (no mulberry hedgerow with mustard-corn rotation); T1 (two-row contour mulberry with mustard-corn rotation); T2 (three-row contour mulberry with mustard-corn rotation); T3 (border mulberry and one-row contour mulberry with mustard-corn rotation); T4 (border mulberry with mustard-corn rotation); T5 (two-row longitudinal mulberry with mustard). The results indicated that crop-mulberry systems could effectively reduce surface runoff and soil and nutrient loss from arable slope land. Surface runoff from T1 (342.13 m(3) hm(-2)), T2 (260.6 m(3) hm(-2)), T3 (113.13 m(3) hm(-2)), T4 (114 m(3) hm(-2)), and T5 (129 m(3) hm(-2)) was reduced by 15.4, 35.6, 72.0, 71.8, and 68.1%, respectively, while soil loss from T1 (0.21 t hm(-2)), T2 (0.13 t hm(-2)), T3 (0.08 t hm(-2)), T4 (0.11 t hm(-2)), and T5 (0.12 t hm(-2)) was reduced by 52.3, 70.5, 81.8, 75.0, and 72.7%, respectively, as compared with the control. Crop-mulberry ecosystem would also elevate soil N by 22.3% and soil P by 57.4%, and soil nutrient status was contour-line dependent.
authors.affiliation: Colleague of Resources and Environment, Southwest University, Chongqing, China.
authors.forename: Fangling
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Fan
authors.forename: Deti
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Xie
authors.forename: Chaofu
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Wei
authors.forename: Jiupai
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Ni
authors.forename: John
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Yang
authors.forename: Zhenya
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Tang
authors.forename: Chuan
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Zhou
mesh_terms: D000383:Agriculture / Q000379:methods; D002681:China; D003247:Conservation of Natural Resources; D018556:Crops, Agricultural / Q000254:growth & development; D017753:Ecosystem; D031625:Morus / Q000254:growth & development*; D012987:Soil / Q000737:chemistry*
chemical_list: D012987:Soil