Age- and Drought-Related Variation in Plant-Available Water of Rain-Fed Jujube Orchards on the Loess Plateau of China

As an important part of the large-scale ecological restoration project “Grain for Green”, planting area jujube (Ziziphus jujuba) trees has increased significantly in hilly region on Loess Plateau China, which aims to improve water and soil conservation develop economic prospects region. Understanding long-term effects expanding orchards responses dynamics drought are orchard management. Therefore, we use a space-for-time substitution investigate variations plant-available storage returning cropland with different stand ages (2, 6, 10, 15 years) normal year (NY2014, 442.1 mm rainfall) next low annual precipitation (DY2015, 388 rainfall). The results showed that decreased increasing age, trend was most obvious 60–180 cm layer. mature stands (10 primarily absorbed from deep layer (180–300 cm) DY2015, leading negative values storage. whole profiles were all subjected severe deficits our study. findings will help guide rain-fed management loess China similar dryland regions.