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Summary In the Loess Plateau of northwestern China, a system for dry farming has evolved based on the employ of gravel mulch. A couple of lab experiments were conducted to study the influences of mulch stratum thickness and gravel grain size on water vapor flow, with a focus on resistance to evaporation in gravel mulch stratum. In Experiment 1, six treatments included mulching with gravel of different thickness (2 cm, 4 cm, 6 cm, 8 cm and 10 cm) plus no mulching (control) were studied. In Experiment 2, the 10 cm thick mulch layer consisted of different grain size gravel [2–5 (A), 5–20 (B), 20–40 (C), 40–60 (D) and 60–80 (E) mm], plus three mixture treatments. Compared to bare soil, mulched soils had significantly lower accumulated evaporation, and gravel mulch significantly increased resistance to evaporation. The aerodynamic resistance to evaporation in bare soil is higher than that in mulched treatments and the relationship between equivalent grain size and aerodynamic resistance in mulched surface can be described by a line function. The relationships between mulch resistance and mulch stratum thickness or grain size of gravel, were represented by logistic curves. The findings showed that equivalent grain size and specific surface area of gravel were sensitive indicators of mulch resistance. Based on the results of laboratory experiments, we put forward a new calculated model of mulch resistance, but further research is needed for verification and exact parameterization of this model under field conditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]