ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Plant Sci.
Sec. Crop and Product Physiology
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpls.2025.1672560
This article is part of the Research TopicRegulatory Effects of Irrigation and Fertilization on Aboveground and Underground Parts of CropsView all 5 articles
The Effects of a Novel Fulvic Acid-Enriched Water-Soluble Fertilizer on Potato Growth, Yield, and Water-Fertilizer Use Efficiency Under Varied Drip Irrigation Regimes
Provisionally accepted
- 1Xinjiang Academy of Agricultural Sciences,, Urumqi, China
- 2Ludong University, Yantai, China
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Northern China is a major potato-producing region, where water scarcity and low fertilizer use efficiency significantly constrain potato production. A field experiment was conducted in Xinjiang, China, in 2023 using the potato cultivar 'Xisen 6' to investigate the effects of a novel fulvic acid (FA)-enriched specialized fertilizer on potato growth, photosynthetic characteristics, yield, and water-fertilizer use efficiency under different drip irrigation levels. Three irrigation regimes were applied: conventional irrigation (W1: 4582.5 m3·ha-1), 15% deficit irrigation (W2: 3865.5 m3·ha-1), and 30% deficit irrigation (W3: 3165 m3·ha-1). Five fertilization treatments were implemented: no fertilizer (CK), conventional fertilizer (CF), and three FA-enriched formula fertilizers—F1 (FA: 120 g·L-1, N-P-K = 110-100-120), F2 (FA: 60 g·L-1, N-P-K = 130-120-150), and F3 (FA: 30 g·L-1, N-P-K = 170-150-130). The results indicated that both irrigation (W) and fertilization (F) significantly influenced potato growth, yield, and the efficiency of water and fertilizer use. Under W2 irrigation, the W2F2 treatment achieved optimal performance, with plant height, aboveground dry weight, SPAD, and tuber yield increasing by 56.67%, 71.24%, 21.69%, and 121.29%, respectively, compared to CK. WUE and PFP reached 13.84 kg·m-3 and 100.1 kg·kg-1, respectively, while maintaining a yield of 59.49 t·ha-1 under 15% water-saving conditions. Tuber yield exhibited highly significant positive correlations with plant height, aboveground dry weight, SPAD, net photosynthetic rate, WUE, and PFP. Principal component analysis based on growth, yield, and resource use efficiency identified W2F2 as the highest-ranked treatment. In conclusion, for 'Xisen 6' cultivation in Northwest China, applying formula fertilizer F2 (FA: 60 g·L-1, N-P-K = 130-120-150) under a drip irrigation rate of 3865.5 m3·ha-1 significantly enhances plant growth, yield, and water use efficiency, providing a sustainable strategy for optimizing potato production.
Keywords: Arid region, 'Xisen 6' variety, fertigation, water-fertilizer coupling, growth physiology, Resource use efficiency
Received: 24 Jul 2025; Accepted: 18 Sep 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Xu, Liu, Li, Zhu, Wu and Meng. 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:
Nan Wu, wunan@ldu.edu.cn
Ajing Meng, mengajing@xaas.ac.cn
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