Soil tillage practices coping with drought climate change in central region of Songliao Plain

In recent 30 years, the influence of spring drought risk on maize production has been increased with the climate change in central Songliao Plain, Northeast China. In this paper, we collected 7 meteorological stations' daily climate data to analyze climate change trend from May to September. These meteorological stations included Changchun, Tonghe, Shangzhi, Fuyu, Kaiyuan, Shuangliao and Siping, which were typical areas of central Songliao Plain. Results showed rainfall in the region decreased during the maize growing season, however, the average temperature, maximum temperature and minimum temperature showed an increasing trend. Drought risks in the maize growing season were aggravated and the drought occurrence frequency increased greatly. In the past 10 years, the drought probability was 60%. On this basis, this paper analyzed the measures coping with climate change in this region from soil tillage effects. Soil moisture, compactness, permeability and maize yield were compared among the treatments of the no-tillage(NT), rotary tillage(RT), conventional tillage(CT) and wide-narrow row alternative tillage(DL). Conservation tillage technologies such as no tillage and wide-narrow alternative tillage with water benefits, which could alleviate drought risk in this region, will be adapted to climate change and become useful measures to improve the yield of maize.