N-fertilizer postponing application improves dry matter translocation and increases system productivity of wheat/maize intercropping

Intercropping increases the grain yield to feed the ever-growing population in the world by cultivating two crop species on the same area of land. It has been proven that N-fertilizer postponed topdressing can boost the productivity of cereal/legume intercropping. However, whether the application of this technology to cereal/cereal intercropping can still increase grain yield is unclear. A field experiment was conducted from 2018 to 2020 in the arid region of northwestern China to investigate the accumulation and distribution of dry matter and yield performance of wheat/maize intercropping in response to N-fertilizer postponed topdressing application. There were three N application treatments (referred as N(1), N(2), N(3)) for maize and the total amount were all 360 kg N ha(−1). N fertilizer were applied at four time, i.e. prior to sowing, at jointing stage, at pre-tasseling stage, and at 15 days post-silking stage, respectively. The N(3) treatment was traditionally used for maize production and allocations subjected to these four stages were 2:3:4:1. The N(1) and N(2) were postponed topdressing treatments which allocations were 2:1:4:3 and 2:2:4:2, respectively. The results showed that the postponed topdressing N fertilizer treatments boosted the maximum average crop growth rate (CGR) of wheat/maize intercropping. The N(1) and N(2) treatments increased the average maximum CGR by 32.9% and 16.4% during the co-growth period, respectively, and the second average maximum CGR was increased by 29.8% and 12.6% during the maize recovery growth stage, respectively, compared with the N(3) treatment. The N(1) treatment was superior to other treatments, since it increased the CGR of intercropped wheat by 44.7% during the co-growth period and accelerated the CGR of intercropped maize by 29.8% after the wheat had been harvested. This treatment also increased the biomass and grain yield of intercropping by 8.6% and 33.7%, respectively, compared with the current N management practice. This yield gain was primarily attributable to the higher total translocation of dry matter. The N(1) treatment increased the transfer amount of intercropped wheat by 28.4% from leaf and by 51.6% from stem, as well as increased the intercropped maize by 49.0% of leaf, 36.6% of stem, and 103.6% of husk, compared to N(3) treatment, respectively. Integrated the N fertilizer postponed topdressing to the wheat/maize intercropping system have a promotion effect on increasing the translocation of dry matter to grain in vegetative organs. Therefore, the harvest index of intercropped wheat and maize with N(1) was 5.9% and 5.3% greater than that of N(3), respectively. This demonstrated that optimizing the management of N fertilizer can increase the grain yield from wheat/maize intercropping via the promotion of accumulation and translocation of dry matter.