Abstract
This study evaluated water use efficiency (WUE) of six range grasses, namely; Chloris roxburghiana, Eragrostis superba, Enteropogon macrostachyus, Cenchrus ciliaris, Chloris gayana, and Sorghum sudanense grown at 80, 50, 30% field capacity (FC) soil moisture contents and rainfed treatment which represented water deficit conditions. The changes in soil moisture content were measured by Gypsum Block which aided in determining the irrigation schedules. The grasses demonstrated varied levels of WUE which was evaluated by amount of biomass productivity in relation to evapotranspired water during the growing period. The three soil moisture content treatments had higher water use efficiency than rainfed conditions. There was a declining trend in WUE with grass species maturity where S. sudanense had higher WUE at 8, 10 and 12th weeks (> 15 kg DM ha-1 mm-) in all the treatments followed by C. gayana and E. macrostachyus and were significantly (p<0.05) different from E. superba, C. ciliaris and C. roxburghiana which had WUE less than 10 among the six grass species. The 30% FC soil moisture content had higher WUE at all the phenological stages for S. sudanense, C. gayana and E. macrostachyus compared to 80, 50% FC and rainfed with all having WUE greater than 20 kg DM ha-1 mm-1. These three species are recommended for irrigated pasture establishment in semi-arid lands where water supply uncertainties exist, owing to their high water use efficiency under lower soil moisture levels. Key words: Water use efficiency (WUE), water stress tolerance, range grasses, pasture irrigation, water deficit, Kenya.
Highlights
Water-use efficiency (WUE) is a critical consideration of plant productivity under water deficit environments (Blum, 2009)
This study evaluated the WUE of Chloris roxburghiana, Eragrostis superba, Enteropogon macrostachyus, Cenchrus ciliaris, Chloris gayana and Sorghum sudanense at different growth stages under different ranges of soil water content to determine which species performs better at low moisture levels
This study indicated S. sudanense and C. gayanato showed better WUE compared to the others species
Summary
Water-use efficiency (WUE) is a critical consideration of plant productivity under water deficit environments (Blum, 2009). WUE refers to rain water that is directly used by the plant during growth with higher value resulting in “more yield per drop” of rain water. The second one considers the amount of plant yields per unit of water that goes through evapotranspiration during growth (Caviglia et al, 2001; Garofalo and Rinaldi, 2013). The latter has a better representation of WUE in terms of accounting for the exact water used by the plant during photosynthesis and transpiration and was used in this study
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