Field Study of Variable Rate Irrigation Management in Humid Climates

Abstract

AbstractComparison of variable rate irrigation (VRI) management with uniform rate irrigation (URI) management in soybean and corn crops was studied for 2 years in Stoneville, Mississippi, USA. The experiments were conducted on two 6.7 ha fields. Each of them was equally split into two sectors. VRI management was performed in one sector and URI management in the other. A centre pivot VRI system was used for delivering irrigation water. Soil apparent electrical conductivity (EC) of the fields was used to delineate VRI management zones and create a VRI prescription map. The VRI treatment used 25% less irrigation water and produced 2.8% more yield in soybean and 0.8% more yield in corn than the URI treatment. Irrigation water productivity (WP) of soybean under VRI management was 0.84 kg m−3 which is 31.2% higher than URI. The WP of corn under VRI management was 1.69 kg m−3, 27.1% higher than URI. Yield of the rainfed treatment was significantly lower than the VRI and URI treatments for both soybean and corn in the 2015 season (p < 0.05). Results in this study demonstrated that VRI management was superior to URI in terms of water use efficiency. Copyright © 2017. This article has been contributed to by US Government employees and their work is in the public domain in the USA. Copyright © 2017. This article has been contributed to by US Government employees and their work is in the public domain in the USA.