Abstract
The limitation in water availability and also salinity and waterlogging related to over application of irrigation water resulted in low crop water productivity, which obliges to adopt alternative water management techniques. The work compared a simple on-farm water optimization technology called Wetting Front Detector (WFD) against computer program to estimate Crop Water Requirement (CWR) and farmers practice (FP). A field experiment was designed in Randomized Complete Block Design, replicated six times on farmers' fields. Results were compared on the basis of application, distribution, storage and water use efficiencies, and water productivity. The results illustrate that there was a significant difference between the water used in the CWR, WFD and FP. In comparison with FP, CWR saved irrigation water by 37% under pepper field. The WFD technology also saved the irrigation water by about 16% than the farmer method. The differences between the water optimization techniques can be accounted for by to differences in the efficiencies of application (E a ), storage (E r ) and irrigation water use which vary considerably from one type of irrigation water management to another at p<0.05. Generally, CWR technique is more efficient (E a is 66.76%), followed by the WFD technique (E a is 62.32%) and farmer practice (E a is 55.74%) under pepper. On the basis of these values, the water saved by the CWR technique could irrigate 16.5% and the WFD 6-8% more area than the FP. Implicitly better crop production, also less competition between head and tail irrigators. The mean IWUE of CWR, WFD and FP were 3.67, 3.08 and 1.52. Based on this study, CWR technique appears to be a promising alternative for water saving without negligible trade-off in yield. The CWR had an E r of 66.42% which can be beneficially used by the crops while the WFD of 50.85%. As a result, yield of the crop from the CWR exceeds both techniques as it can provide sufficient amount of water for plants at their root zones. Considerable amount of water in FP is lost to Deep Percolation (D p ) and this has environmental and economic implications. Although many indicators confirm the importance of CWR approach, its practicality at farmers level is questioning as it is computer based. Thus, WFD would be an important tool to be considered to improve the current on farm water optimization by smallholder irrigators. DOI: 10.7176/JNSR/10-5-02 Publication date: March 31 st 2020
Highlights
Population of Ethiopia is growing at an alarming rate of 2.89% (CIA World Factbook, last assessed by August 2016) while the resources they are expanding on are limited, and the production itself is not at the rate the population is growing
Dp and Er are application, deep percolation and storage efficiencies respectively Application efficiency: From the results presented in Table 7, one can clearly see that there is a significant difference among water application efficiencies of all water management techniques at P
Marketable yield has no significant difference at p=0.05 between CWR (1.36 t/ha) and WFD
Summary
Population of Ethiopia is growing at an alarming rate of 2.89% (CIA World Factbook, last assessed by August 2016) while the resources they are expanding on are limited, and the production itself is not at the rate the population is growing. Water for agriculture is amongst the limiting resources not to feed the growing population with more diversified diets. In Ethiopia where the climate change exposes the nation to frequent drought, such ideal conditions are rare where water availability for crop production is highly erratic both spatially and temporally (Seleshi et al, 2007). Efforts to ensure food self-sufficiency at household level require efficient use of irrigation water and appropriate water application techniques. The farmers’ irrigation method is aiming at supplying sufficient water to crops to avoid water stress during the whole growing stage, so as to achieve maximum yield (Doorenbos and Pruitt, 1992). The limitation in water availability and, salinity or toxicity related to over irrigation obliges to adopt alternative water management techniques (Lorite et al, 2007)
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