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The Tarim River Basin, the largest area of Chinese cotton production, is receiving increased attention because of serious environmental problems. At two experimental stations (Korla and Aksu), we studied the influence of salinity on cotton yield. Soil chemical and physical properties, soil water content, soil total suction and matric suction, cotton yield and water use efficiency under plastic mulched drip irrigation in different saline soils was measured during cotton growth season. The salinity (mS·cm−1) were 17–25 (low) at Aksu and Korla, 29–50 (middle) at Aksu and 52–62 (high) at Aksu for ECe (Electrical conductivity measured in saturation-paste extract of soil) over the 100 cm soil profile. The soil water characteristic curves in different saline soils showed that the soil water content (15%–23%) at top 40 cm soil, lower total suction power (below 3500 kPa) and lower matric suction (below 30 kPa) in low saline soil at Korla had the highest water use efficiency (10 kg·ha−1·mm−1) and highest irrigation water use efficiency (12 kg·ha−1·mm−1) and highest yield (6.64 t·ha−1). Higher water content below 30 cm in high saline soil increased the salinity risk and led to lower yield (2.39 t·ha−1). Compared to low saline soils at Aksu, the low saline soil at Korla saved 110 mm irrigation and 103 mm total water to reach 1 t·ha−1 yield and increased water use efficiency by 5 kg·ha−1·mm−1 and 7 kg·ha−1·mm−1 for water use efficiency (WUE) and irrigation water use efficiency (IWUE) respectively.

The main task of this research was to evaluate canopy temperature and Crop Water Stress Index (CWSI) by assessing genotype variability of maize performance for different water regimes. To that end, three hundred tropical and subtropical maize hybrids with different phenology in terms of date of anthesis were evaluated. The influence of phenology on the change in canopy temperatures and CWSI was not equal during the three dates of measurement. At the end of vegetative growth (82 days after sowing, DAS) and at the blister stage (DAS 97), a high significant difference in temperatures and CWSI (P

In this study the suitability of thermal imaging for phenotyping was investigated as part of a breeding experiment carried out by the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Centre (CIMMYT) at Tlaltizapan experimental station in Mexico. Different subtropical maize genotypes with two replications were screened with respect to their tolerance to water stress. Thermal images of the canopy of 92 different maize genotypes were acquired on two different days in the time interval between anthesis and blister stages (grain filling 1), whereby each picture contained five plots of different genotypes and canopy temperatures calculated for each plot. Significantly, lower canopy temperatures were found in well-watered genotypes compared with water-stressed genotypes. Furthermore significant differences (p

The Xinjiang Region in Northwest China is known as the “dust center” of the Eurasian mainland. Dust on the leaf surface affects overall plant development. While emphasis was on studying the impacts of industrial dust particles on crop development, the effect of natural dust deposition on the physiological parameters of cotton had not been studied before. The objective of this study was to examine the effects of dust deposits on cotton leaves and to estimate their impact on crop development and yield. For this purpose, an experiment was set up having two treatments and a control. In Treatment 1, cotton leaves were cleaned with water at three-day intervals or after a natural dust fall. In Treatment 2, 100 g·m−2 of dust was applied at 10-day intervals. The control received neither additional dust nor cleaning. In all of the treatments, stomatal conductance, leaf temperature, biomass and yield were measured. The results show a 28% reduction in yield and 30% reduction in stomatal conductance of the dust treatment compared to the control treatment. This indicates blocking of the stomata on the top of the leaf surface. In addition, the canopy temperature of the dust-applied leaves was always higher than the control and treatment.

Winter irrigation is one of the water and salt management practices widely adopted in arid irrigated areas in the Tarim Basin located in the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region in the People’s Republic of China. A winter irrigation study was carried out from November 2013 to March 2014 in Korla City. A cotton field was divided into 18 plots with a size of 3 m × 3 m and five winter irrigation treatments (1200 m3/ha, 1800 m3/ha, 2400 m3/ha, 3000 m3/ha, and 3600 m3/ha) and one non-irrigation as a control were designed. The results showed that the higher winter irrigation volumes allowed the significant short-term difference after the irrigation in the fields with the higher soil moisture content. Therefore, the soil moisture in the next sowing season could be maintained at the level which was slightly lower than field capacity and four times that in the non-irrigation treatment. The desalination effect of winter irrigation increased with the increase of water irrigation volume, but its efficiency decreased with the increase of water irrigation volume. The desalination effect was characterized by short-term desalination, long-term salt accumulation, and the time-dependent gradually decreasing trend. During the winter irrigation period, air temperature was the most important external influencing factor of the soil temperature. During the period of the decrease in winter temperatures from December to January, soil temperature in the 5-cm depth showed no significant difference in all the treatments and the control. However, during the period of rising temperatures from January to March, soil temperature in the control increased significantly, faster than that in all treatments. Under the same irrigation volume, the temperature difference between the upper soil layer and the lower soil layer increased during the temperature drop period and decreased during the temperature rise period. In this paper, we proposed the proper winter irrigation volume of 1800–3000 m3/ha and suggested that the irrigation timing should be delayed to early December or performed in several stages in the fields with the drainage system. Under the current strict water management and fixed water supply quota situation, the methods are of great practical significance.

Biotic factors such as pests and pathogens cause a substantial damage to wheat crops which leads to reduction in yield in a range from 10% to 50%. Application of fungicides and pesticides on one hand protects the crop but it also increases the crop production cost. Pathogens affect photosynthesis, respiration, translocation of water and nutrients of the crop and mostly the visual symptoms are detected too late to protect the crop. The objective of this study was to detect the plant fungal diseases by non-invasive sensor technologies and to determine the early outbreak of the disease. The experiment was conducted in the greenhouse where the two wheat cultivars namely; Monopol and Kalahari were infected with three fungal diseases viz. Fusarium culmorum, Septoria tritici and Blumeria graminis f.sp. tritic. Throughout the experiment four spectral sensors were used namely, Isaria, Handyspec, Multiplex and Infrared thermal camera. The results showed that as early as 2 days after inoculation (DAI), an increase in the average canopy temperature and maximum temperature difference within the canopy (MTD) was observed. Similarly, the REIP calculated from Handyspec showed significant difference between the infested and the control plants before the visual symptoms appeared. Multiplex measured chlorophyll content which is related to the photosynthesis process allowed to detect the early symptoms in contrast to the Isaria which, does not show a significant difference between control and infected plants.