Evaluation and Application of the AquaCrop Model in Simulating Soil Salinity and Winter Wheat Yield under Saline Water Irrigation

Saline water irrigation has been considered a useful practice to overcome the freshwater shortage in arid and semi-arid regions. Assessing scheduling appropriate amount, salinity, timing is essential maintaining crop yield soil sustainability when using saline agriculture. A field experiment that included two levels (traditional deficit irrigation) three salinities (0, 5, 10 dS/m) was carried out North China Plain during 2017/18 2018/19 winter wheat growing seasons. AquaCrop used simulate optimize for wheat. The model displayed satisfactory performance simulating volumetric content (R2 ≥ 0.85, RMSE ≤ 2.59%, NRMSE 12.95%), salt 0.71, 0.62 dS/m, 26.82%), in-season biomass 0.89, 1.03 t/ha, 18.92%), grain 0.92, 0.35 7.11%). proper strategies were irrigations of 60 mm with salinity up 4 dS/m each at jointing, flowering, grain-filling stage dry year; 6 jointing flowering normal one 8 wet year, which could achieve over 80% potential while mitigating secondary salinization. Nonetheless, tended overestimate moisture production but underestimate particularly under stress. Further improvements solute movement stress are desired facilitate performance. Future validation studies long-term data also recommended obtain more reliable use better identify influence irrigation. Finally, maintained good balance between simplicity, preciseness, user-friendliness, be feasible tool guide