Effects of Conservation Tillage on Yield and Water Use Efficiency of Field Pea and Spring Wheat

This paper mainly studies the yield and water use efficiency(WUE) of spring wheat and field pea under conservation tillages with different covered ways.Spring wheat and field pea was intercroppinged in fields respectively treated with tillage(T or CK),no-tillage with straw(NTS),no-tillage without straw(NT),tillage with straw(TS),tillage with plastic mulching(TP) and no-tillage with plastic mulching(NTP).During growth stage,we investigated growth period,seedling number,dry matter,soil moisture,yield,and analysised the data.WUE and harvest index(HI) under plastic mulching treatments(TP and NTP) were significantly higher than that of T,TS,NTS and NT.However,as for seedling number and dry matter at early stages,TP and NTP were lower than T,TS,NTS and NT.Plastic mulching and planting along sides are better conservation tillage in western semi-arid areas of Loess Plateau.