Water accumulation in soil by gravel and sand mulches: Influence of textural composition and thickness of mulch layers

The use of gravel and sand as mulch has been an indigenous farming technique for crop production for over 300 years in the semiarid loess region of northwest China. The objective of this study was to determine the influence of texture and thickness of gravel and sand mulch layers on soil water storage by field experiments. The texture experiment consists of three commonly used gravel mulch types: pebble, mixed pebble and sand, fine sand; and the thickness experiment consists of 1, 2 and 3-layers of 2 cm pebbles. Each treatment has three replications. The results indicate that gravel–sand mulches were more effective in conserving soil water, as compared with the bare soil treatment, and the mixed pebble and sand mulch was more effective to conserve soil water than the sole pebble or sand mulch. Soil water content increased with mulch thickness (the number of gravel layers), 1-layer treatment had an average soil water content of 10.85% at 0–60 cm soil layer after a rainfall of 10 mm, 2.42% and 4.92% less than the 2-layers and 3-layers treatments. From May to October in 2004, two and three layers of pebbles conserved 9.8 ± 6.6 mm and 20.0 ± 14.3 mm more water, respectively, as compared with the one layer of 2 cm pebbles at the soil depth of 0–100 cm.

Research highlights
► The mixed pebble and sand mulch was more effective to conserve soil water.
► Soil water content increased with mulch thickness.
► Two and three layers of pebbles conserved more water than the one layer treatment.