Effects of Constructed Fertile Layer on Sandy Soil Physical Properties and Maize Yield

Sandy soil is an important arable soil in China, and is a kind of medium-low yield soil with simple mineral structure, low water capacity and nutrient contents. It has attracted more and more attention on how to improve and enhance sandy soil production by constructed fertile layer. Typical sandy soil distributed in Chifeng Inner Mongolia was selected to study the effects of constructed soil layer way (tillage and materials incorporation), depth (T20, T35, T50) and materials (manure and black soil) on soil aggregate fraction, soil properties and maize yield, with no treatment as control(CK). The results showed that the depth of constructing fertile layer and material application impacted soil properties in soil profile. Constructing fertile cultivated layer increased soil aggregate fraction contents >2 mm and 0.25 mm~2 mm with the trend of manure>black soil>plowing>CK. Materials incorporation decreased soil bulk density, increased soil total porosity, field water capacity and saturation water capacity with best effect by manure application treatment, indicating that constructing fertile cultivated layer could increase sandy soil water capacity. Compared with CK, black soil incorporation and plowing, soil water conductivity in manure application was increased by 17.2%~45.3%. Maize yield in different constructing depth showed T35>T50>T20, indicating that optimized depth of fertile cultivated layer was 35 cm, while maize yield under manure application treatment was increased by 38.8%, 34.7% and 7.2%, compared with CK, plowing and black soil incorporation. Therefore, suitable fertile cultivated layer depth was 35 cm with manure incorporation.