Abstract
The status of water in soil and vegetation was monitored in a stand of crested wheatgrass (Agropyron cristatum) and a nearby shortgrass steppe during a growing season. This was done to determine if water use and losses were similar among two very different communities in a similar climate. Precipitation was similar throughout the study period for both the crested wheatgrass and native shortgrass communities. However, the native shortgrass community with greater root biomass had consistently greater soil water depletion in the deeper soil horizons than was found in the crested wheatgrass community. Greater depletion of soil water by native shortgrass species suggests that they might be more competitive than crested wheatgrass in a water-limited environment.
Crested wheatgrass maintained high leaf water potential early in the season, but lower water potential during the latter part of the growing season as compared with the major species of the shortgrass steppe, blue grama (Bouteloua gracilis) and western wheatgrass (Agropyron smithii). Leaf conductance was lower for crested wheatgrass than for the native grasses during the later part of the growing season. Consequently, seasonal transpiration for crested wheatgrass was lower when compared with blue grama or western wheatgrass. Lower conductance allowed crested wheatgrass to maintain relatively high internal water potential and may have accounted for less soil water use at deeper soil depths during the latter part of the growing season.
Water loss through transpiration was less for western wheatgrass than for either blue grama or crested wheatgrass because western wheatgrass had less leaf area. However, western wheatgrass was as efficient as the other species in its use of water. Crested wheatgrass transpired more water than blue grama early in the growing season, but less than either native species for the remainder of the growing season. Estimated seasonal transpiration loss was greater in the shortgrass ecosystem than in the established crested wheatgrass stand.
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Trlica, M.J., Biondini, M.E. Soil water dynamics, transpiration, and water losses in a crested wheatgrass and native shortgrass ecosystem. Plant Soil 126, 187–201 (1990). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00012822
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00012822