Qira Oasis is located on the southern fringe of the Taklamakan Desert, the most arid region in northwest China, where the mean annual precipitation is less than 40 mm but the evaporation can be as high as 2600 mm per year. Implementation of agriculture at Qira Oasis is constrained by multiple environmental factors, e.g. strong sunlight, high temperature, drought, and low soil fertility. As a C₄ plant, maize shows a high photosynthetic rate, better adaptability to salinity and desertification, and stronger competitiveness. To research the adaptability of maize to different severities of desertification, field experiments were performed using Shenyu 2000 (a maize cultivated by Shenyang academy of agriculture sciences) growing in a desertification gradient outside of Qira Oasis and subjected the experimental plots to three stress treatments (mild, moderate, and severe desertification, designated D1, D2, and D3, respectively). D1 was located in marginal farmland in the oasis, D2 in the transitional zone between farmland and desert, and D3 on the desert edge of the transition zone. Each treatment consisted of three experimental plots, arranged in an L arrangement, comprising an area 20 m long and 15 m wide. The distance between each site was about 1 km, and the moderate and severe desertification sites were separated by a 1-meter-wide shrub forest belt of Calligonum mongolicum. The soil water content, plant height, biomass allocation, proline, malondialdehyde, soluble sugar, chlorophyll (Chl), chlorophyll fluorescence parameters, and specific leaf area of the maize plants were recorded during the pollination period. Desertification inhibited growth of the maize plants. Growth and photosynthesis parameters showed different rates of decline at different desertification severities. At D3, biomass, proline, malondialdehyde, chlorophyll, carotenoids (Car), Chl a/b, decreased 291.88, 110.38, 50.64, 218.71, 133.26, and 21.35%, respectively, and the chlorophyll fluorescence parameters F_v/F_m, F_v/F_o, and F_m/F_o also decreased by 10.01, 34.37, and 23.36%, respectively, compared with those at D1. The soluble sugar content was lowest in the moderate desertification treatment and highest in the severe desertification condition; at D2, it decreased 8.28%, compared with D3. The Car∶Chl ratio, specific leaf area and the ratio between underground biomass and total biomass increased with increasing desertification severity. Compared with D1, these parameters increased 36.68%, 12.86% and 53.04%, respectively. The results indicated that implementation of agriculture at Qira Oasis is a comprehensive and complex environment. For improved adaptation to desertification, maize plants allocate greater energy to vegetative organs, and also alter their vegetative morphology to adapt to an increasingly severe environment. Although maize plants can adapt to desertification conditions by regulation of metabolic processes and metabolite accumulation, these are also primary factors that limit their normal growth and physiology. The effect of different desertification stress gradients on maize mainly reflects the light intensity and pigment and the structure of PSⅡ, which affect photosynthesis and decrease biomass accumulation. The growth of maize is significantly limited by desertification as the level of stress increases.