Mulching increases water-use efficiency of peach production on the rainfed semiarid Loess Plateau of China

•We examined water balance in a rain-fed peach orchard in the semiarid Loess Plateau of China.•Soil moisture, temperature and evapotranspiration were strongly influenced through mulching treatments.•The plastic film mulched ridge with furrows (PFM) model was developed for rainfall harvesting.•The PFM model was applied to a semiarid region in the Loess Plateau of China.

We examine the water-use balance, fruit yield and water-use efficiency of five-year-old peach trees with two different mulching systems: plastic film mulched ridge, with furrows (PFM) and straw mulched (SM). Compared with the clean tillage (CT) water management method, PFM increased, and SM significantly decreased, the soil temperature (P < 0.05). Both mulching systems increased the gravimetric soil water content (1.9–2.9%) with a reduction in the average annual evapotranspiration (ET) of 82.5 mm and 49.3 mm through SM and PFM, respectively. The water-use efficiency (WUE) was improved from 5.7 (CT) to 8.1 (PFM) and 9.0 kg m−3 (SM), resulting in a reduction in ET and an increase in fruit yield from 25.2 (CT) to 32.2 (PFM) and 32.5 t ha−1 (SM). Thus, both mulching systems could serve as models for peach production in semiarid rainfed areas, due to the high soil water content during bloom and fruit expansion.