No-Tillage Maize Adaption in North China Plain.

No-tillage Maize Adaption in North China Plain Yan Meng1, 2, Yun Sheng Li1*, Zhu Ouyang1, Hanxia Li1 1Yucheng Comprehensive Experimental Station, Key Laboratory of Ecosystem Network Observation and Modeling, Institute of Geographical Sciences and Natural Resources Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100101, China 2Graduate University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China *Corresponding author. Tel.: +86 10 64889029; fax: +86 10 64851844 Email address: liys@igsnrr.ac.cn (Y.S. Li) Abstract No-till agriculture has never been valued in China. This is because of limited availability of no-till information and the lack of mechanized agriculture in China. Actually, China has a long history of no-tillage but not with the associated residue management. This paper expresses a new founding that north China Plain (NCP) has very large no-till maize planted area in the world. This paper also reviewed the current state of knowledge and application of no-till agriculture in China and how it compared to other more developed countries. The area of no-till maize in the North China Plain (NCP) is greater than people thought from the literature. Until 2010, no-till maize in the NCP occupied 10.4 million ha, which is 20.29% by area. No-till maize in the NCP is equivalent to one fifth of the no-till agriculture area of South America and a quarter of that in North America. By reviewing knowledge gaps, final remarks of this article are aimed at guiding both future research and no-till agricultural developments in China and other developing countries. Implications for future policies to encourage adoption of conservation production systems have been noted. Keywords: no-tillage, maize, adaption, North China Plain (NCP) 1