Abstract
Corn lodging can damage corn growth and reduce corn yield, and the degrees of corn yield loss could vary with corn species,
soil conditions, agronomic practices as well as the degrees of external forces from strong wind or heavy rain. In August, 2012,
Jilin province, China suffered from Typhoon Bolaven and large areas of corn lodged. However, in some no-tillage (NT) fields
of this area corn lodging is much less serious than in other fields. We assumed that NT led to less serious lodging. We conducted
this study on a long-term tillage trial which was seriously hit by Typhoon Bolaven. The experiment consists of NT, moldboard
plow (MP), ridge tillage (RT) with continuous corn (CC), corn-soybean (CS), and corn-corn-soybean (CCS) rotations. The
most serious lodging occurred in MP-CC treatment, followed by NT-CCS, NT-CC, NT-CS, MP-CS, and RT-CS. The lower
incidence of lodging occurred in CS rotation. Soil bulk density and penetration resistance were not major factors affecting corn
lodging except for MP-CC plot where root lodging occurred. The ratio of 2012 to average of 2007-2011 corn yield took the
order of MP-CC < NT-CCS < MP-CS ≈ NT-CS < NT-CC < RT-CS ≈ MP-CCS. It suggested that RT has more advantages
than NT and MP in preventing yield loss from strong wind and heavy rain. Moreover, adoption of RT combined with CS
rotation could be taken into consideration preferentially for lower lodging and higher yield in Black soils in Northeast China.
