ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Agron.
Sec. Plant-Soil Interactions
Volume 7 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fagro.2025.1668004
This article is part of the Research TopicSoil Tillage and Nitrogen Fertilization Methods for Sustainable Productivity of Industrial CropsView all 5 articles
No-till and nitrogen management improve soybean yield by increasing the net photosynthetic rate in an arid area of northwest China
Provisionally accepted
- Xinjiang Production and Construction Crops Oasis Eco-Agriculture Key Laboratory, Shihezi University College of Agriculture, Shihezi, China
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No-till (NT) farming minimizes disturbance to agricultural ecosystems and regulates the water cycle in dryland agriculture. This study investigated the interactive effects of tillage practices and nitrogen (N) application on soybean (Glycine max L.) photosynthesis and yield to optimize N management in NT systems. Field experiments (2023–2024) in Shihezi, Xinjiang, employed a split-plot design with tillage (conventional tillage, CT; no-till, NT) as main plots and N rates (0, 105, 150, 195 kg N ha⁻¹; denoted N0, N1, N2, N3) as subplots, generating eight treatments (CTN0, CTN1, CTN2, CTN3, NTN0, NTN1, NTN2, NTN3). The NTN2 system significantly increased soil water storage (SWS) and soil total nitrogen (STN) relative to NTN0 (P < 0.05), enhanced soybean leaf area index (LAI) during R4-R6 stages, and improved SPAD values, net photosynthetic rate (Pn), and stomatal conductance (Gs), ultimately boosting grain yield (GY) by 75.7–83.4% versus NTN0 (P < 0.05). Crucially, N2 application mitigated tillage-induced constraints, enabling NT to achieve yields comparable to CTN2 (P > 0.05). Thus, integrating no-till with 150 kg N ha⁻¹ optimizes soybean productivity and resource efficiency in arid northwestern China.
Keywords: No-till farming, nitrogen management, Soil total nitrogen, Photosynthesis, Soybean yield
Received: 17 Jul 2025; Accepted: 23 Sep 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Zhang, He, Jiao and Liu. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Jianguo Liu, ljg_agr@shzu.edu.cn
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