Abstract: The effects of irrigation on winter wheat yield and water use efficiency (WUE) were mostly explored based on site-based experiments in North China Plain (NCP) region. However, due to the influences of contrasting environmental factors (e.g. climate and soil properties), these results cannot be accurately cross-compared among different studies, resulting in the difficulty to get the generalizable pattern at regional scale. Here meta-analysis was conducted to comprehensively evaluate the effects of irrigation on winter wheat yield and WUE in NCP region, with the observation data of 1876 pairs from 186 field experimental papers totally. The differences of the irrigation effects in different regions, precipitation year types, soil texture, and nitrogen (N) application levels were explored, and the corresponding optimal irrigation amounts for reaching high yield and WUE were ascertained. Results showed that compared with non-irrigation during the winter wheat growing period, irrigation increased the yield of winter wheat in NCP by 32.0%-38.3%, and reduced the WUE by 27.1%-30.1%. The yield increment due to irrigation in the northwest of NCP (39.6%-53.5%) with total precipitation during the winter wheat growing period below 150mm was higher than that in the southeast of NCP (24.3%-27.1%) with total precipitation during the winter wheat growing period higher than 150mm, while the decrease of WUE due to irrigation in northwest of NCP (32.4%-37.5%) was higher than that in the southeast of NCP (22.0%-24.3%). The optimum irrigation amount for high yield and WUE of winter wheat was 150-180mm in the northwest and 120-150mm in the southeast. Specifically, for different precipitation year types, the optimum irrigation amounts were 120-150mm with 2 times during jointing and flowering stages for dry year, during jointing and heading stages for normal year, and during jointing and booting stages for wet year. For different soil texture, irrigation under loamy soil had the highest increases in yield, while clay soil had the lowest decreases in WUE; the optimum irrigation amounts of winter wheat with four different soil texture of sandy soil, loam, clay loam and clay were 60-90mm, 120-150mm, 180-210mm, and 150-180mm, respectively. For different N application levels, N application of 120-240kg·ha⁻¹ led to the highest yield and WUE under the irrigation amounts of 80-140mm, of which the higher yield was obtained under irrigation amounts of 110-140mm, and the higher WUE was obtained under the irrigation amounts of 80-110mm. Collectively, the NCP region can achieve the goals of high yield and WUE when irrigation amount was 120-150mm with 2 times but at different stages during different precipitation year types (i.e. dry year, normal year and wet year). Meanwhile, the combination of loam conditions with the N application of 120-240kg·ha⁻¹ can synergistically improve the yield and water use efficiency of winter wheat.

Key words: Winter wheat in North China Plain, Yield, Water Use Efficiency, Synergistically improvement, Meta-analysis