The center’s missions are: 1) to ensure the national demands on grain yield, water resources and ecological protection, by focusing on the high efficient use of agricultural water resources; 2) to develop the innovative ecological resource theory and the modern agricultural technology systems for resource preservation; and 3) to strengthen technological achievements transformation and service to society.
The Center for Agricultural Resources Research has three key laboratories (i.e., the Key Laboratory for Agricultural Water Resources of CAS, Hebei Province Key Laboratory for Water-Saving Agriculture, and Hebei Province Engineering Laboratory of Breeding and Germplasm Innovation for Plant Stress Tolerance). The center has three field stations (i.e., Luancheng Agro-ecosystem Experimental Station, CAS, Nanpi Eco-agricultural Experimental Station, CAS, and Taihang Mountain Mountain Ecosystem Experimental Station, CAS). In 2016, the center has achieved significant progresses in farmland hydrological process and high efficient use of agricultural water resources, crop germplasm selection and breeding, ecosystem process and management.
Water Resources and Water-Saving Agriculture: Mengyu Liu's group proposed a series of technologies to save irrigation water through altering the sawing date and spaces according to effective rainfall. Xiying Zhang's group determined the best timing for irrigation using brackish water and revealed that increase of soil organic matter could help to maintain soil fertility and root zone salt balance. Yonghui Yang's group rectified ET algorithm using P-T model under a film-mulched farmland and found that the annual water consumption from pear garden is about 70 mm larger than that from croplands (Ai et al., J Hydrometeorol, 2016). Yanjun Shen's group quantified fied that water in deep vadose zone moves mainly as a type of matric flow by a rate of ~1.14 m/y with loading large amount of solutions. Denitrification acts as a major factor to reducing nitrate leaching to aquifers in plain region, while denitrogen is little in mountain aquifers (Min et al., Hydrol Process, 2017). Yanjun Shen's group also clarified the nexus relations among regional cropping pattern, water resources, and grain yield in semiarid NCP, and pointed out that the upper limit of irrigation land should be restrained as much as 4 million ha in the NW arid region (Guo and Shen, J Hydrol, 2016). These findings posed great understanding to agricultural water saving practices at the dimension of crop drought resistance physiology, brackish water utilization, efficient water and nitrogen management at field scale, as well as understanding to the agriculture-water-ecology nexus relations or even the appropriate reclamation extent at region scale.
Plant Genetics and Breeding: Diaoguo An's group characterized a new Pm2 allele, PmFG, which confers powdery mildew resistance in the wheat germplasm Line FG-1, and seven closely linked markers were developed for PmFG (Ma et al., Front Plant Sci, 2016). The new variety of wheat "Kenong 2011" developed by Junming Li's group was certified. In addition, they characterized a number of quantitative trait loci for wheat kernel size, quality and tolerance to low-N stress using a recombinant inbred line population derived from Kenong 9204 × Jing 411 (Cui et al., Theor Appl Genet, 2016). Xigang Liu's group uncovered the mechanisms by which the FHY3, a key factor in light signaling, is involved in plant meristem maintenance and determinacy, which shed new light on how plant development coordinated with environmental signals (Li et al., PNAS, 2016). Zhengbin Zhang's group performed transcriptomic analysis of the responses of Triticum urartu to water deprivation and resupply, providing gene and molecular marker resources for the genetic improvement of drought resistance in wheat and related crops. Dongping Lu's group found that a Xanthomonas oryzae pv. oryzae effector, XopR, associates with receptor-like cytoplasmic kinases and suppresses PAMP-triggered stomatal closure (Wang et al., Sci China Life Sci, 2016).
Ecology and Environment: Chunsheng Hu's group determined the soil organic/inorganic carbon storage in the soil profile at 0–100 cm depths and the concentration of dissolved inorganic carbon in soil leachate in four kinds of N application treatments (0, 200, 400, and 600 kg N ha–1 y–1) for 15 years in the North China Plain (Dong et al., Sci Total Environ, 2016). Lin Ma's group quantified nutrient flows and losses in the whole manure management chain (from animal feeding to manure application to land) in China and potential to reduce nutrient losses and increase the amount of manure applied to crop land and replace fertilizer NPK (Bai et al., Environ Sci Technol, 2016). Binbin Liu's group established the nitrificaton-related pathways (including ammonia oxidation) and heterotrophic denitrification as the most predominant sources of N2O emissions from soil ecosystems. Xiaojing Liu's group developed the diversified crop-planting patterns to adapt to the characteristics of regional soil and water resources in coastal plain of Hebei province (Yang et al., Eur J Agron, 2016). Jintong Liu's group developed an evaluation model for underground water used as irrigation to analysis benefit-cost of three underground water irrigation scenarios in North China Plain (Yu et al., Irrig Drain, 2016). Jiansheng Cao’s group developed the automatic control system of wide-and narrow-spacing partial root alternate irrigation and the modern sensor technology and intelligent control technology. In addition, the center was awarded a second prize of Hebei Nature Science, a second prize of Hebei Progress in Scientific and Collective Technology, and a first prize of Xinjiang Progress in Scientific and Collective Technology; published 76 papers, of which 43 were included in SCI Journals; administered 8 consulting reports to the local and central government; granted 11 patents; draw a national standard; registered 2 softwares in 2016.
