Shiliuyun-Xinjiang Daily (Reporter Liu Yi) news: On November 6, 2024, it was learned from the Xinjiang Academy of Agricultural Sciences that this year, agricultural technicians in Xinjiang have accelerated the promotion of no-tillage and replanting technology for corn in the southern Xinjiang, continuously improving the grain production.

“In spring every day counts, in summer every hour counts.” Sailihan Sai, a researcher at the Crop Research Institute of the Xinjiang Academy of Agricultural Sciences, introduced that corn replanting that adopt no-tillage cultivation technologies is a new type of agricultural production method, whose core is to directly sow corn without turning up the soil after wheat harvesting. This technology eliminates the need for watering and plowing, and combined with drip irrigation technology, it can advance the sowing period by 10 days, increasing the utilization rate of summer solar and thermal resources by about 10 percent, leaving as much solar and thermal resources as possible for crop growth, and improving yield and quality.

Southern Xinjiang has more abundant solar and thermal resources than the northern Xinjiang, and there is still an effective accumulated temperature of 2000 ℃ to 2400 ℃ after winter wheat harvest. Therefore, the main mode of grain production in southern Xinjiang is the combination of winter wheat and replanted corn, with two harvests per year.

Photo taken on October 9, 2024 shows corn planted with no-tillage cultivation technologies in Baren Township, Shule County, Kashi Prefecture, northwest China’s Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, is ripe. (Photo by Sailihan Sai)

“Although the yield is slightly higher than in northern Xinjiang, it is not particularly abundant,” Sailihan said. Compared to other places planted wheat and corn that can be harvested two time a year in China, the accumulated temperature in southern Xinjiang has just met the growth needs of winter wheat and corn. It is particularly important to seize the time to improve the utilization rate of accumulated temperature.

In order to achieve this goal, agricultural technicians in Xinjiang have taken this as the main technical proposal to strive more solar and thermal resources for the replanting of corn. In 2023, the annual yield per mu of the demonstration field for early maturing corn and early maturing winter wheat exceeded 1300 kilograms for the first time.

“We looked for new breakthroughs from other perspectives in order to make good use of the time," Sailihan said. This year, the corn research team of the Crop Research Institute Xinjiang Academy of Agricultural Sciences focused on the feasibility and internal technical points of no-tillage and replanting technology for corn, focusing on the problems of tight accumulated temperature and low yield in replanting corn and formed the "technical regulations for integrated cultivation of no-tillage drip irrigation water and fertilizer for corn on stubble field".

Over the past year, the no-tillage and replanting technology for corn has been successfully promoted in nearly 133,333 hectares in Aksu, Kashi, Hotan and other areas in Xinjiang, with a technology coverage rate of 30 percent in Kashi Prefecture. Technicians have established multiple promotion demonstration sites in Zepu County and Shule County, with an average yield of over 650 kilograms of corn per unit area. The annual grain yield of winter wheat and replanted corn has reached about 1350 kilograms, and the yield of corn kernels in some demonstration fields has exceeded 700 kilograms per unit area. The no-tillage and replanting technology for corn has been widely promoted and applied.

Sailihan said that researchers have identified the improvement of no-tillage seeders as a new research direction. Through further integration and matching of agricultural machinery and technology, the applicability of the technology will be improved, and they will strive to increase the annual yield of this technology to 1400 kilograms within two years.

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