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Introduction: Drip irrigation is an efficient water-saving system used to improve crop production worldwide. However, we still lack a comprehensive understanding of maize plant senescence and its association with yield, soil water, and nitrogen (N) utilization under this system., Methods: A 3-year field experiment in the northeast plains of China was used to assess four drip irrigation systems: (1) drip irrigation under plastic film mulch (PI); (2) drip irrigation under biodegradable film mulch (BI); (3) drip irrigation incorporating straw returning (SI); and (4) drip irrigation with the tape buried at a shallow soil depth (OI), and furrow irrigation (FI) was used as the control. The plant senescence characteristic based on the dynamic process of green leaf area (GLA) and live root length density (LRLD) during the reproductive stage, and its correlation with leaf N components, water use efficiency (WUE), and N use efficiency (NUE) was investigated., Results: PI followed by BI achieved the highest integral GLA and LRLD, grain filling rate, and leaf and root senescence rate after silking. Greater yield, WUE, and NUE were positively associated with higher N translocation efficiency of leaf protein responding for photosynthesis, respiration, and structure under PI and BI; whereas, no significant differences were found in yield, WUE, and NUE between PI and BI. SI effectively promoted LRLD in the deeper 20- to 100-cm soil layers, prolonged the GLA and LRLD persistent durations, and reduced the leaf and root senescence rates. The remobilization of non-protein storage N was stimulated by SI, FI, and OI, which made up for the relative inadequacy of leaf N., Discussion: Instead of persistent GLA and LRLD durations and high translocation efficiency of non-protein storage N, fast and large protein N translocation from leaves to grains under PI and BI was found to facilitate maize yield, WUE, and NUE in the sole cropping semi-arid region, and BI was recommend considering that it can reduce plastic pollution., Competing Interests: The reviewer LZ declared a shared parent affiliation with authors MA, FY and YW to the handling editor at the time of review. The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest., (Copyright © 2023 Wu, Yao, Wang, Ma and Li.)

As essential approaches for conservation agricultural practices, straw residue retention and crop rotation have been widely used in the Mollisols of Northeast China. Soil organic carbon, root development and microbial community are important indicators representing soil, crop and microbiota, respectively, and these factors work together to influence soil fertility and crop productivity. Studying their changes and interactions under different conservation practices is crucial to provide a theoretical basis for developing rational agricultural practices. The experiment in this study was conducted using the conventional practice (continuous maize without straw retention, C) and three conservation practices, namely, continuous maize with straw mulching (CS), maize-peanut rotation (R), and maize-peanut rotation with straw mulching (RS). Straw mulching (CS) significantly increased soil total organic carbon (TOC), active organic carbon (AOC), and microbial biomass carbon (MBC), but did not promote maize yield. Maize-peanut rotation (R and RS) significantly increased dissolved organic carbon (DOC) in the rhizosphere by promoting root growth, and maize yield (increased by 10.2%). For the microbial community structure, PERMANOVA and PCoA indicated that the bacterial community differed significantly between rhizosphere soil and bulk soil, but the fungal community shifted more under different agricultural practices. The correlation analysis indicated that the rotation system promoted the association between the soil DOC and the microbial community (especially the bacterial community), and straw mulching enhanced the connection between the soil TOC and the fungal community. Some plant growth-promoting rhizobacteria (including Bacillus , Streptomyces , Rhizobium , and Pseudomonas ) were enriched in the rhizosphere soil and were increased in the rotation system (R and RS), which might be due to an increase in the soil rhizosphere DOC level. These beneficial microbes had significantly negative correlations with several fungal groups (such as Mycosphaerella , Penicillium , Paraphoma and Torula ) that were classified as plant pathotrophs by FUNGuild. These results indicated that ensuring plant root development and improving root-bacteria interactions are of great importance to guarantee crop yield when implementing conservation tillage practices., Competing Interests: The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest., (Copyright © 2022 Chen, Yao, Mi, Wang, Wu and Wang.)

There have been a number of studies on biogeographic patterns of plant leaf functional traits; however, the variations in traits of other plant organs such as twigs are rarely investigated. In this study, we sampled current-year twigs of 335 tree species from 12 forest sites across a latitudinal span of 32 degrees in China, and measured twig specific density (TSD), twig dry matter content (TDMC), and carbon (C), nitrogen (N) and phosphorous (P) contents, to explore the latitudinal and environmental patterns of these twig traits. The overall mean of TSD and TDMC was 0.37 g cm(-3) and 41%, respectively; mean twig C, N and P was 472 mg g(-1), 9.8 mg g-1 and 1.15 mg g(-1), respectively, and mean N:P mass ratio was 10.6. TSD was positively correlated with TDMC which was positively associated with twig C but negatively with twig N and P. There were no significant differences in TSD between conifer, deciduous-broadleaf and evergreen-broadleaf plants, but evergreen-broadleaf plants had the lowest and conifers the highest TDMC. Conifer twigs were lowest in C, N, P and N:P, whereas deciduous-plant twigs were highest in N and P and evergreen-plant twigs were highest in C and N:P. As latitude increased or temperature/precipitation dropped, TDMC and P increased, but N:P ratio decreased. Our results also showed that the patterns of twig P and N:P stoichiometry were consistent with those reported for leaves, but no significant trends in twig N were observed along the gradient of latitude, climate and soils. This study provides the first large-scale patterns of the twig traits and will improve our understanding of the biogeochemistry of carbon and other key nutrients in forest ecosystems.