Impacts of Farming Layer Constructions on Cultivated Land Quality under the Cultivated Land Balance Policy

Abstract

Cultivated Land Balance Policy (CLBP) has led to the “better land occupied and worse land supplemented” program. At the same time, the current field-scale cultivated land quality (CLQ) evaluation cannot meet the work requirements of the CLBP. To this end, this study selected 24 newly added farmland in Fuping County and performed eight different high quality farming layer construction experiments to improve the CLQ. A new comprehensive model was constructed on a field scale to evaluate the CLQ using different tests from multi-dimensional perspectives of soil fertility, engineering, environment, and ecology, and to determine the best test mode. The results showed that after the test, around 62% of the cultivated land improved by one level, and the average cultivated land quality level and quality index of the test area increased by 0.63 and 30.63, respectively. The treatment of “woody peat + rotten crop straw + biostimulation regulator II + conventional fertilization” had the best effect on the improvement of organic matter, soil aggregates, and soil microbial activity, and was the best treatment method. In general, application of soil amendments, such as woody peat when constructing high quality farmland, could quickly improve CLQ, and field-scale CLQ evaluation model constructed from a multi-dimensional perspective could accurately assess the true quality of farmland and allow managers to improve and manage arable land resources under CLBP.