Stable Soil Moisture Improves the Water Use Efficiency of Maize by Alleviating Short-Term Soil Water Stress

Weaker temporal variation of soil moisture can improve crop water use efficiency (WUE), but its physiological mechanism was still unclear. To explore the mechanism, an organized experiment was conducted in Beijing from June to September. From the jointing stage to maturity stage of maize, stable soil moisture (SSM) and fluctuating soil moisture (FSM) were established with Pressure Potential Difference-Crop Initiate Drawing Water (PCI) and manual irrigation (MI), respectively, to explore the physiological mechanism of SSM to improve maize WUE. Among them, PCI treatments were set with 3 pressure differences of -5, -10, and -15 kPa, and MI treatment was watering every 3 days with the irrigation amount of 9.3 mm. The results showed that (1) after water treatment, the average soil water content of PCI-5 kPa, PCI-10 kPa, PCI-15 kPa, and MI treatments were 53% field capacity (FC), 47, 38, and 78% FC, respectively. It was SSM with weak temporal variation under PCI treatments, and FSM with medium temporal variation under MI treatment. (2) PCI treatments reduced the content of proline, malondialdehyde, and abscisic acid in each organ of maize. (3) Compared with FSM 78% FC, the maize root activity at the filling stage of 53% FC SSM and 47% FC SSM increased significantly by 57.1 and 28.6%, respectively, and the carbon isotope discrimination value (Δ(13)C) in bracts of the two treatments increased by 18.3 and 10.4%, respectively. (4) There was a very significant positive correlation between WUE based on biomass (WUE(b)) and Δ(13)C in bracts. In conclusion, a large temporal variation of soil moisture was an important factor that caused water stress in maize. Under SSM treatments, the accumulation of abscisic acid, proline, and malondialdehyde was synergistically reduced. SSM improved the WUE of maize by alleviating short-term soil water stress caused by the fluctuation of soil moisture.