Yield and water productivity of maize under different deficit irrigation and moisture conservation practices

Abstract

A field study was conducted to estimate the effects of deficit irrigation and moisture conservation practices on the yield and water productivity of maize crop in the field and using CSM-CERES-Maize DSSAT model. The experiment was carried out at Water Management Research Station, University of Agriculture Jhang Road Faisalabad. Crop response was checked in two main plots with and without mulch on two sowing methods ridge furrow and bed furrows. Treatment response was compared with the conventional application of irrigation on ridge furrow and deficit irrigation was applied on the bed furrow method with different levels of deficit 50%, 60% and 70%. Mulching was applied as a moisture conservation technique. Design used for the experiment was randomized completely block design with three replications of all treatments in the experiment. CERES-MAIZE was used to estimate the yield and water productivity of maize crop under different irrigation practices. Calibration and simulation of the model was done with the help of field data of different sowing methods and deficit irrigation method in bed-furrow and ridge furrow. Field calculation recommendations shows that grain yield, dry matter, plant height and harvest index were all related with the application of irrigation methods and frequency and on the moisture conservative techniques like mulching effects on the treatments. Results clearly showed that bed-furrow sowing method with 60 percent deficit irrigation level and with mulch showed best results in all the treatments. Maximum grain yield 23%, total dry matter 6.4% minimum depth of water applied 8.1% water productivity 25% plant height 9.3% the net profit 268,908 all were obtained in treatment T6 that was bed-furrow with 60% deficit with mulch. Deficit irrigation reduced water use due to decrease of application losses on the bed-furrow sowing method and wheat straw also conserved the soil moisture. Results registered that bed-furrow with 60 percent deficit irrigation with mulch was best for the grain yield, plant height, plant dry matter as compared to the ridge -furrow sowing method with no deficit and conventional application of irrigation with and without mulch. The CERES-Maize predicted accurately the days to anthesis and maturity with no error (%), yield with error of - 10.62% and tops weight with error of 6.55%. Further, model evaluation results shows that model also predicted LAI, TDM and grain yield good in agreement with d-index of 0.59, 0.46 and 0.80 respectively. During validation process, CERES-maize also predicted LAI, TDM and grain yield good in agreement with d-index of 0.86, 0.57 and 0.73, respectively.