| A field experiment was conducted in a manual loessial soil in middle Shaanxi Province, a sub-humid area prone to drought, to study the effects of rainwater-harvesting cultivation on soil moisture and mineral nitrogen accumulation in field of winter wheat. Ridge-furrow tillage was used, the ridges being mulched by plastic film for rainwater harvesting while the furrows being seeded. The results showed that mulching was effective for water storage and conservation. At reviving stage of winter wheat, water stored in 040 cm layer in mulching field was 7.7 mm higher than that in non-mulching field. Mulching was able to improve the plants to use more water in the deeper soil, so water storage in 100200 cm layer under mulching was decreased by 23.8 mm compared to that under non-mulching. Mulching was beneficial for the crop to absorb and utilize nitrogen fertilizer and to decrease the concentration of NO3--N and the mineral nitrogen accumulation in the soil. |