Effects of drought-flood abrupt alternation on the growth of summer maize

Abstract

Climate change, especially precipitation change, will significantly change soil moisture, which then influences root growth, further affecting yield and grain quality. Previous studies focused on the drought or flood effects on summer maize growth. However, few studied the effects of drought-flood abrupt alternation (DFAA) on the growth of summer maize. We explored the DFAA impacts on the roots, leaf area index (LAI), yield, and grain quality in field. The main results show that DFAA had different impacts on the summer maize growth in the seeding-jointing stage (SJS) and tasseling-grain filling stage (TGS). In general, the DFAA reduced the yield. Roots at the depth of 40 cm had obviously positive impacts on the yield. The DFAA reduced the LAI and promoted the maximum LAI achieving in advance. The grain crude protein augmented under DFAA. The drought had evidently negative impacts on the grain crude fat in the TGS, while it had no obvious influence in the SJS. DFAA had no apparent impact on the grain crude starch. These results could provide some references for the effects and adaptation-strategies study of extreme climate events and their impacts on growth of summer maize.