In the top 20 cm layer, soil water storage during the early growing period was always greater in full mulching than in the other mulching treatments and CK ( P < 0.05), but the difference disappeared after branch initiation stage ( Fig. 3 A and E).
In the subsoil layers (21–60 cm depth), the difference became smaller ( Fig. 3 B and F), and disappeared in the deep (61–100 cm and 101–180 cm) soil layers ( Fig. 3 and Fig. 4 ).