Influence of Supplemental Irrigation and Applied Nitrogen on Wheat Water Productivity and Yields

Abstract

A field experiment was conducted for three growing seasons to study the effects of seasonal water use and applied N fertilizer on yield attributes and water productivity indices of wheat in an arid region of Iran. The results revealed that yield attributes were significantly affected by irrigation and nitrogen treatments and growing season, and their interactions. Crop height, maximum leaf area index and biological yields were increasingly affected by the available water and N fertilizer. The findings indicated that the grain yield response to N was associated with water application levels. The water productivity indices were influenced by irrigation strategies and deficit irrigation effectively boosted productivity of irrigation water (W I ). The highest W I was obtained at a seasonal irrigation water of 156 mm for different levels of applied nitrogen . For levels of applied N 1 (application 70% of the required nitrogen), N 2 (required nitrogen), and N 3 (application 120% of the required nitrogen), W I ranged between 0.93 and 2.28, 1.30 and 2.75, and 0.98 and 2.47 kg m -3 , respectively. The data generated here suggest that under deficit irrigation, maximum water productivity (W ET ) would be achieved when 98 kg N ha −1 is combined with a 156 mm of supplemental irrigation. In this seasonal water use, W ET value may be increased to 30% with N appropriate practice (practice N 2 ). Consequently, when limited irrigation water is combined with N fertilizer appropriate management, wheat water productivity can be substantially and consistently increased in the region.

Effect of Irrigation Regimes and Nitrogen Levels on the Growth and Yield of Wheat

“…Limited irrigation is an important constraint for wheat production in rainfed, tropical, arid, and semi-arid regions. In scarce rainfall conditions and less irrigation, the best management option for N and irrigation levels is to maintain the maize-wheat cropping sequence [7] and limited irrigation water is combined with N fertilizer [8] to get maximum productivity of wheat. Supplemental irrigation significantly increased the yield of wheat with respect to rainfed treatment.…”

Effect of Supplemental Irrigation on Wheat Performance Grown in Semi-Arid Environment

“…This indicates that drought is a main limiting factor affecting growth and plant biomass under semi-arid conditions (Abdel-Ghani, 2013;Al-Rjoub et al, 2006). Under limited water conditions, irrigation scheduling is used to allocate irrigation water rationally during different wheat growing stages in order to maximize GY and WP (Montazar et al, 2011). Similarly, many authors (Erekul et al, 2012;Semcheddine et al, 2014;Shang et al, 2020) showed the importance of SI to increase yield under water limiting environments.…”

“…SI is used to improve and stabilize crop yield by supplying the crop with water by SI when rainfall is limited to provide sufficient moisture for normal plant growth (Oweis, 1997;Shang et al, 2020;Wang, 2017). Under limited rainfed conditions, irrigation scheduling is used to allocate irrigation water rationally during the critical growth stages to increase crop yield, and farm profit (Montazar et al, 2011). Therefore, selecting high-yielding varieties and using suitable agricultural practices in wheat production are considered major for wheat growers in Jordan to enhance grain yield under dry farming.…”

Conjunctive use of green and blue water resources in agriculture: Methodology and application for supplemental irrigation*

“…The optimization of SI applications and its economic gains in rainfed crops are well established at the field level (Oweis & Hachum, 2001, 2009; Zoebl, 2006; Montazar & Mohseni, 2011; Sui et al ., 2014; Shahi Nezhad & Pezeshkpour, 2015; Kahraman et al ., 2016; Manning et al ., 2018). Potential application and economic impact at the basin level are less researched.…”