Abstract
<abstract> <bold>Abstract.</bold> An alfalfa field study was established in 2011 at the University of Wyoming Research and Extension Center in Powell, WY. The objectives of the study were to determine: a) the daily and seasonal ET<sub>c</sub> and water use efficiency (WUE) of alfalfa grown under different irrigation strategies and b) the yield response of alfalfa to limiting water. The experiment was a strip plot with 4 irrigation treatments and three alfalfa cultivars with four replicates. Reference evapotranspiration and crop coefficients were used to estimate the irrigation water amounts. A neutron probe, to a depth of 100 cm, was used for water balance estimations. The WUE was estimated as the ratio of the dry matter (DM) yield to ET<sub>c</sub>. Significant differences (P<0.05) on water use and WUE were found between irrigation treatments while no differences were found between varieties. A strong relationship (R<sup>2</sup> = 0.81) was found between ET<sub>c</sub> and total yield. The daily ET<sub>c</sub> ranged from 5.5 to 0.7 mm d<sup>-1</sup> and the seasonal ET<sub>c</sub> ranged from 737 to 191 mm for the fully irrigated and 25% irrigated treatments, respectively. DM yield was as high as 15293 kg ha<sup>-1</sup> and as low as 3,900 kg ha<sup>-1</sup> for the fully irrigated and the 25% irrigated treatments, respectively. The WUE was as high as 3 kg m<sup>-3</sup> and as low as 1.17 kg m<sup>-3</sup> for the fully irrigated and the 25% irrigated treatments, respectively. Further steps include studying the effects of limiting water on the forage quality of alfalfa and the development of irrigation scheduling strategies.
Published Version
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