| In order to investigate the mechanism of aerated drip irrigation coupled with nitrogen application to improve the crop's salt stress tolerance, this study used a bucket randomized trial with two salt stress levels of 6.2 (S1) and 12.3 (S2) dSm-1 and five nitrogen (urea) application levels of 0 (N0), 100 (N1), 200 (N2), 300 (N3), and 400 (N4) kghm-2 in non-salted soil, non-aerated and conventional (300 kghm-2) as the control (CK) to analyze the effects of aerated drip irrigation and nitrogen application on physiological growth characteristics, yield and nitrogen uptake and utilization in salt-stressed cotton. The preliminary results showed that salt stress significantly reduced photosynthesis and inhibited cotton growth. With the increase of nitrogen application, the net photosynthetic rate (Pn) and dry matter mass were significantly increased by 32.52% to 53.30% and 178.07% to 264.37% in S1 treatment, while Pn was reduced by 13.27% to 47.29% and dry matter mass was increased by 49.79% to 178.72% in S2 treatment.The nitrogen content in roots and stems of S2 compared with that of S1 treatment was increased by 4.78% to 55.41% and 17.65% to 37.36%, while leaves and bells were reduced by 9.21% to 32.86% and 7.39% to 41.87%. Moderate application of N under aerated drip irrigation according to soil salinity conditions could reduce the decline in cotton yield caused by salt stress. Under medium salt stress (6.2 dSm-1), the highest seed cotton yield was achieved when the nitrogen fertilizer application rate of aerated drip irrigation was 200 kghm-2. High salt stress (S2) treatment significantly reduced cotton yield and there was no significant difference between the nitrogen treatments, and aerated drip irrigation applied a low nitrogen application rate (100 kghm-2) to maximize yield. |