Maize Genomics and Genetics 2025, Vol.16, No.5, 258-266 http://cropscipublisher.com/index.php/mgg 262 effectiveness of some new planting methods (Figure 3). The experiment focused on several key points, such as planting density, number of fertilizations, and irrigation methods. They compared farmers' usual planting methods with a new method called "high-yield and high-efficiency management (HH management)" to see how big the difference in effect was (Wang et al., 2023a). Figure 3 Relationship between summer maize yield and plant density in Laoling in 2015. The curved black line is the boundary line; the values of the upper, middle, and lower horizontal lines are the attainable yield, predicted yield, and actual yield on farms, respectively. The total yield gap is the difference between the attainable yield and the actual yield; the explainable yield gap is the difference between the attainable yield and the predicted yield; and the remainder is the unexplainable yield gap (Adopted from Chen et al., 2018) 5.2 Key findings and observations The results of the experiment found that there is a large gap between the actual yield of summer maize in the North China Plain and the achievable high yield, indicating that there is still a lot of room for increase in yield. The key factors affecting yield are whether the planting is dense enough, whether the fertilizer is applied correctly, and whether the irrigation is kept up. Some farmers who performed well have significantly higher yields and more efficient use of fertilizers, such as nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium are not wasted, and they also earn more. By improving household and field management, they increased grain production by 30% to 35%, fertilizer utilization by 32% to 48%, and profits by 14% to 62%. After adopting optimized management, the yield per hectare was 2.7 tons higher than before, the utilization efficiency of nitrogen fertilizer increased by 38%, and the greenhouse gas emission intensity was reduced by 28% (Wang et al., 2023b). However, the survey also found that many small farmers used too much fertilizer, especially nitrogen fertilizer, but the yield was not higher, indicating that fertilization methods need to be improved (Ren et al., 2020). 5.3 Implications for broader adoption This regional trial shows that some seemingly simple and inexpensive adjustments, such as increasing planting density, improving fertilization time and amount, combined with overall management methods, can enable small
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