Recent progress and prospects in the development of ridge tillage cultivation technology in China

•Adopting ridge tillage (RT) in China has a long history of more than 2000 years.•Better yields in RT attributed to the improvement of soil physicochemical characters.•We proposed a Water-Saving ridge Tillage & Terrace Cultivation Technology (RTT).•RTT can achieve the dual purpose of water storage and air aeration in soil. The trace of high and low ridge in the Sanyangzhuang village site showed that adopting ridge tillage cultivation technology (RT) in China has a long history of more than 2000 years. In this paper, we reviewed recent advances of the development and application of RT in China. The better yields from crops grown on ridges/furrow compared with those on flat land were attributed mainly to the improvement of soil moisture conditions, better air permeability and effective supply of soil nutrition. However, most studies of RT are mainly concentrated in upland crop. It has not been reported on RT's higher water use efficiency (WUE) and the capacity of drainage & impounding during the rice production process. New systems of ridge tillage & terrace cultivation model (RTT) for irrigated rice are described here. Further research is needed to optimize management strategies and to strengthen basic research for RTT to obtain environmental and economic benefits and to evaluate practicability and effectiveness of RTT in the paddy field.