Abstract:
China’s sugarcane industry faces the dual constraints of seasonal drought and insufficient soil fertility. Optimizing drip fertigation patterns is of great significance for improving sugarcane yield and production sustainability. This study used newly planted and ratoon sugarcane as experimental materials and adopted a two-factor randomized block design with different irrigation and fertilization levels. Three irrigation levels were set: I
50 (800 m
3/hm
2)、I
75 (
1200 m
3/hm
2)、I
100 (
1600 m
3/hm
2) and three fertilization levels: F
50 180 kg(N)/hm
2+90 kg(P
2O
5)/hm
2+60 kg(K
2O)/hm
2、F
75 270 kg(N)/hm
2+135 kg(P
2O
5)/hm
2+90 kg(K
2O)/hm
2、F
100 360 kg(N)/hm
2+180 kg(P
2O
5)/hm
2+120 kg(K
2O)/hm
2 constituting 9 drip fertigation treatments. Meanwhile, three control treatments were established: no fertilization (CK
0), conventional fertilization (CK
1) and drip irrigation with conventional fertilization (CK
2). Main agronomic traits, yield, quality and economic benefits were determined to screen the optimal drip fertigation regime using entropy weight-grey relational analysis. The result showed that in newly planted sugarcane, tillering rate of F
100 treatments was significantly higher than that of CK
1 and CK
2 treatments, while millable stalk number of I
75F
100, I
100F
75 and I
100F
100 treatments in both newly planted and ratoon sugarcane significantly exceeded CK
1 treatment. Compared with CK
1 treatment, F
100 treatment significantly increased the cane yield by 13.94%−17.11% in newly planted sugarcane and 10.77%−22.17% in ratoon sugarcane. Both newly planted and ratoon sugarcane had the highest sucrose content under CK
0 treatment, and sucrose yield across all treatments followed the same trend as cane yield, whereas sucrose yield showed a similar trend to cane yield. In newly planted sugarcane fields, CK
1 treatment had a significantly lower soil pH compared to all treatments (except CK
2 and I
50F
50 treatments), while F
100 treatments had significantly higher soil total nitrogen, available nitrogen and available phosphorus contents compared with CK
1 and CK
2 treatments. Compared with CK
1 treatment, I
75F
100 and I
100F
100 treatments significantly increased the content of soil organic carbon, labile organic carbon, particulate organic carbon, mineral associated organic carbon and microbial biomass carbon, while F
100 treatments significantly increased the carbon pool management index by 21.34%−33.18%. In terms of rhizosphere microbial diversity, CK
0 treatment showed the highest Sobs index, significantly exceeding all treatments (except I
75F
100 and I
100F
75 treatments). Over the 2 years of the study, CK
1 treatment without drip irrigation network investment had the highest net profit, but I
100F
100 and CK
2 treatments showed significantly higher yield profit growth rates than CK
1, indicating better profit growth potential. In terms of comprehensive benefit evaluation, high water-high fertilizer (I
100F
100) and medium water-high fertilizer (I
75F
100) treatments exhibited superior comprehensive benefits, and were identified as the most suitable drip fertigation patterns for promotion in dry sloping land of red soil in Southern China.