REGULATED DEFICIT IRRIGATION SCHEDULING OF MAIZE CROP

Abstract

Despite of the fact, that irrigation scheduling is important tools for decision making process but only very few farmers understand and not yet utilized by the majority of farmers. Furthermore, limited irrigation scheduling information are utilized by farm managers and extensionists. A regulated deficit irrigation experiment was conducted to investigate the effect of different irrigation depths on yield of Maize crop by using pan evaporation method. Five irrigation treatments 0.50 Epan (T1), 0.75 Epan (T2), 1.00 Epan (T3), 1.25 Epan (T4) and one control treatment i.e. farmers practice (T0) with three replicates by using randomized complete block design were tested. The total irrigation depth applied to maize was 278, 132, 197, 263 and 328 mm for T0, T1, T2, T3 and T4 treatments respectively. Only three number of irrigation were applied due to the occurrence of heavy rainfall during the study period. The average actual MAD before first, second and third irrigation ranged between 0.24-0.44, 0.34-0.66 and 0.30-0.54 respectively. The variation in MAD was due to non-uniform frequency of irrigation. The average application efficiency was between 45-91, 37-46 and 43-75% during first, second and third irrigation respectively. The maize evapotranspiration (ETc) was 451 mm during the study period. Maximum yield of 2933 kg/ha was obtained when plots were irrigated according to 0.75 Epan. Statistical analysis showed that there was significant affect of irrigation depths on grain yield.