Effects of winter irrigation on soil moisture and thermal condition of artificial grassland during the winter in agro-pastoral ecotone of China
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DOI:10.7606/j.issn.1000-7601.2010.04.02
Key Words: winter irrigation  winter season  soil moisture and thermal condition  Bashang plateau
Author NameAffiliation
LI Zizhong College of Resources and Environment SciencesChina Agriculural University, Bejing 100193, China 
WANG Hao College of Resources and Environment SciencesChina Agriculural University, Bejing 100193, China 
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Abstract:
      Field experiments were caried out in Bashang plateau in the agro-pastoral transition zone of North China during two winter periods of 2005~2007. The objective of the study was to investigate the effects of winter irrigation on soil moisture and thermal condition in winter based on data of total water content by the oven-dried method, unfrozen wa-ter content by time domain reflectometry(TDR), soil thermal condition by thermistors,and meteorological data. The re-sults showed that, winter irrigation delayed the freezing process at the beginning of winter and thawing process at the be-ginning of spring. And winter irrigation also delayed the change of soil temperature because it resulted in soil temperature decreasing slowly in freezing soil and increasing slowly in thawing soil, so winter irrigation kept high soil temperature in winter and decreased the risk of frozen injury . The total water storage before and after winter changed litle, as winter irrigation improved soil water condition largely and this effect was kept until next spring.