Authors
1 Faculty Member of Department of Agricultural Engineering Research, Agricultural and Natural Resources Research Center of Guilan Province, Rasht;
2 Facaulty Member of Department of Agricultural Engineering Research, Agricultural and Natural Resources Research Center of Golestan Province, Gorgan,
Abstract
Among the main causes of low water use efficiency are use of an improper irrigation method and applying excessive irrigation. To evaluate tape and furrow irrigation methods for soybean cultivation under different irrigation regimes, a field experiment was conducted in two years (2006-2007) at Gorgan Agricultural Research Station located in Golestan province in north of Iran. The experiment was laid out in a split plot design in the form of completely randomized blocks where each treatment was replicated three times. Irrigation systems of tape and furrow were set up as the main plots, and three irrigation regimes of 100%, 75% and 50% of total crop water requirement were allocated to the subplots. Comparison of water consumption (m3/ha) between the two systems showed that tape irrigation had 33 percent less water use than furrow irrigation. Results indicated that the soybean yield was not affected by irrigation systems. But, the different irrigation regimens had some impact on crop yield. Water use efficiency in the full irrigation (100 %) regime under drip tape irrigation was 1.6 times that of furrow irrigation system. In tape irrigation, mean water distribution uniformity (Ed) in full irrigation was 96% and in furrow irrigation it was 95%. Application efficiency (Ea) under tape irrigation was 84%, which was much higher than furrow irrigation. Also, based on the results, most of water losses in furrow irrigation systems were due to surface run off, while these losses were not observed in the tape irrigation. Overall, in drip tape irrigation, less water was consumed and water use efficiency increased compared to furrow irrigation
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