Improvement of cultivated cotton adaptability to extreme climate events under climate change promotes sustainable cotton production. Extreme rainfall leads to a significant decrease in cotton yield, which may be related to changes in soil water consumption (SWC) and the vertical distribution of yield, but relevant research is still scarce. Here, a two-year cotton sowing date experiment was conducted in which geostatistics, sensor technology, the spatial grid method, and principal component analysis were combined to analyze cotton utilization of soil water during extreme rainfall (2021) and normal (2022) years. The reasons for cotton yield reduction under extreme rainfall and strategies to improve cotton production adaptability to extreme rainfall were discussed. Under extreme rainfall, the morphogenesis and reproductive organ development of cotton were inhibited. The accumulation of SWC and its relationship with the biomass accumulation of cotton on different sowing dates under extreme rainfall exhibited nearly opposite characteristics to those in a normal year. Simultaneously, the two-year yield showed the opposite trend with the change in sowing date. There existed a trade-off strategy for the vertical distribution (i.e., on the upper, middle and lower fruiting branches) of cotton yield. Extreme rainfall reduced the yield at lower fruiting branches and increased the boll-forming rate of the upper fruiting branches, which was closely related to seed cotton yield, lint yield and water productivity (WP). Optimizing the cotton sowing date (early sowing should be appropriate in this study) may improve the adaptability of cotton production under extreme rainfall, but further long-term studies are needed. This study highlights the critical practice of climate-smart agriculture and has reference value for the sustainable development of cotton production.

中文翻译：

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极端降雨和土壤耗水量差异增加了较低结果枝的产量脱落，降低了不同播种日期下的棉花水分生产力


在气候变化下提高栽培棉花对极端气候事件的适应能力，促进了可持续棉花生产。极端降雨导致棉花产量显著下降，这可能与土壤耗水量 （SWC） 和产量垂直分布的变化有关，但相关研究仍然稀缺。在这里，进行了一项为期两年的棉花播期试验，其中结合了地质统计学、传感器技术、空间网格法和主成分分析，以分析极端降雨（2021 年）和正常（2022 年）期间棉花对土壤水分的利用。讨论了极端降雨下棉花减产的原因以及提高棉花生产对极端降雨的适应性的策略。极端降雨下，棉花的形态发生和生殖器官发育受到抑制。极端降雨下不同播期棉花生物量积累量及其与棉花生物量积累量的关系与正常年份表现出几乎相反的特征。同时，两年产量与播种日期的变化呈相反的趋势。棉花产量的垂直分布 （即在上、中、下结果枝上） 存在一种权衡策略。极端降雨降低了下部果枝的产量，提高了上部果枝的成铃率，这与籽棉产量、皮棉产量和水生产力 （WP） 密切相关。优化棉花播期（本研究应宜早播）可能会提高极端降雨下棉花生产的适应性，但需要进一步的长期研究。 本研究重点介绍了气候智能型农业的关键实践，对棉花生产的可持续发展具有参考价值。