M N; B GH; K D; A A; H D; A T
Abstract
In order to evaluate the role of a limited irrigation and agronomic management scenarios on improving yield and rain water productivity (WP) of rainfed wheat, a field study was conducted at multiple farms of Honam (Lorestan Province) in the upper Karkheh River Basin (KRB), Iran. The calibrated and validated ...
Read More
In order to evaluate the role of a limited irrigation and agronomic management scenarios on improving yield and rain water productivity (WP) of rainfed wheat, a field study was conducted at multiple farms of Honam (Lorestan Province) in the upper Karkheh River Basin (KRB), Iran. The calibrated and validated AquaCrop model was used to define the best management scenario in order to enhance yield and WP of rainfed wheat in upper KRB in 2013-2014. In the next step, the best management scenarios were carried out in three research fields of rainfed wheat in 2014-2015. In field experiments, the treatments included two main management (traditional and advanced management) and two levels of limited irrigation (rainfed, single irrigation of 60 mm at spring time). According to the best scenario of AquaCrop model, spring single irrigation with constant depth of 60 mm was applied at three times (the first, middle and end of flowering period). The result shows that under rainfed conditions, by using the advanced management, rain water productivity of wheat increased by 36% as compared to traditional management. The results of this study showed that a single irrigation application at spring time (during flowering stage) increased the average total water productivity of wheat to 0.70 kg m-3, an increase of 74% as compared to the traditional management. The optimum program was obtained by a combination of advanced agronomic management package with single irrigation of 60 mm at the middle of flowering stage, which increased yield and WP of rainfed wheat to 176% and 134%, respectively, as compared to traditional management. Results of field experiments were in good agreement with the proposed scenarios by AquaCrop model.