Standardization of Alternate Wetting and Drying (AWD) Method of Water Management in Lowland Rice (ORYZA SativaL.) for Upscaling in Command Outlets

Abstract

The experiment was conducted in irrigated lowlands and followed alternate wetting and drying (AWD) practices by using field water tubes. The site had sandy clay soil. Grain yield was 6.0–7.2 t ha−1 with AWD irrigation and 7.5 t ha−1 with continuous submergence irrigation. Non‐significant (P > 0.05) difference was registered in yield attributes and grain yield between continuous submergence of irrigation and I5 (AWD irrigation regime of 5 cm submergence depth from 15 DAT (days after transplanting) to physiological maturity when the ponded water level drops to 5 cm below ground level) and I6 (AWD irrigation regime of 5 cm submergence depth from 15 DAT to physiological maturity when the ponded water level drops to 10 cm below ground level). There was a decrease in yield attributes and grain yield with the I4 (AWD irrigation regime of 3 cm submergence depth from 15 DAT to physiological maturity when the ponded water level drops to 15 cm below ground level). Of various irrigation regimes, AWD irrigation regimes of I5 ( 57 900 ha−1) and I6 ( 56 500 ha−1) registered higher net returns with a B: C ratio of 1.27 and 1.29, respectively, owing to higher grain yield coupled with lower application of water. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Alternate Wetting and Drying in the Center of Portugal: Effects on Water and Rice Productivity and Contribution to Development

“…The logic of the information transmission process is presented in the flowchart of Figure 6 , including the data collected by the farmer, and automatic sensors, to the irrigation management decision, articulated with the water supply conditions at district level [ 7 , 51 , 52 ].…”

“…Therefore, the use of soil moisture, or soil water potential sensors to control the crop water stress during the drying phase is an important issue [ 57 ]. These different methods can be articulated with sensing mechanisms aimed at automating irrigation [ 36 , 52 ], to optimize water consumption and crop productivity, and reduce the additional manpower required by the AWD. This topic represents an important and current area of investigation, which deserves the best attention [ 58 ].…”

Alternate wetting and drying irrigation increases water and phosphorus use efficiency independent of substrate phosphorus status of vegetative rice plants

“…Although the agronomic effects of AWD vary with the duration and severity of soil drying, mild soil water deficits decreased water use by 23% while yields were statistically similar to continuously flooded crops, especially if AWD was applied either during the vegetative growth phase or reproductive growth phase, but not both (Carrijo et al, 2017). Nevertheless, this meta-analysis conceals considerable variation in the agronomic responses at specific sites, such that AWD sometimes significantly increases crop yields even though less water was applied (Mote et al, 2017;Norton et al, 2017a;Song et al, 2019). More detailed measurements of crop physiology are required to understand how AWD improves yield, but mechanisms may include leaf angle changes that allow greater light penetration of the canopy thereby boosting photosynthesis (Price et al, 2013), increasing the proportion of productive tillers (Howell et al, 2015;Mote et al, 2017;Norton et al, 2017a;Yang et al, 2017) and other grain yield components (Rahman and Bulbul, 2014;Li et al, 2018a;Song et al, 2019).…”

“…Nevertheless, this meta-analysis conceals considerable variation in the agronomic responses at specific sites, such that AWD sometimes significantly increases crop yields even though less water was applied (Mote et al, 2017;Norton et al, 2017a;Song et al, 2019). More detailed measurements of crop physiology are required to understand how AWD improves yield, but mechanisms may include leaf angle changes that allow greater light penetration of the canopy thereby boosting photosynthesis (Price et al, 2013), increasing the proportion of productive tillers (Howell et al, 2015;Mote et al, 2017;Norton et al, 2017a;Yang et al, 2017) and other grain yield components (Rahman and Bulbul, 2014;Li et al, 2018a;Song et al, 2019). AWD can be applied during grain filling to stimulate the remobilisation of stem carbohydrates that can contribute up to 40% of grain mass accumulation (Yang and Zhang 2010).…”

Performance evaluation of a water level sensor under various turbidity levels in lowland crop production systems

“…This water level still allows the roots of the rice plant to continue capturing water from the saturated soil, therefore, will not cause the yield to decline [29]. The practice of AWD can save irrigation water up to 30% without a decline in yield [1,4,15,25,35,37,45,51,55,57,61,62,66,67,69]. It also reduces irrigation hours by about 38% [47] and lowers methane emissions by as much as 50% [12,51,42].…”