Forecasting of Long-term Sugar Beet Water Requirement in the Middle Anatolia, Turkey

Abstract

Turkey’s highest sugar beet (Beta vulgaris L.) cultivation area is the Konya basin where is located in Middle Anatolia region. Therefore, this area has socio-economic importance in this region. However, the area faces water scarcity due to less amount of precipitation and high evapotranspiration. Moreover, irrigation is a prerequisite for sugar beet cultivation. Therefore, irrigation management is a vital topic for the area. The Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations Penman-Monteith (FAO 56 PM) equation for estimating reference evapotranspiration (ETo) requires various meteorological data. Unfortunately, it is not possible to ease to reach all these input data. Hence, FAO56 proposes another method called Hargreaves – Samani (HS). Due to limited meteorological data, the HS method is employed for estimating ETo in the Konya basin. For this area, there is big ambiguity about crop evapotranspiration (ETc) and the net irrigation requirement (NIR) for sugar beet crop. This study estimates long-term (1986-2015) sugar beet evapotranspiration and net irrigation requirement to give a better idea for sugar beet irrigation management in the Konya basin. Results show that long-term annual sugar beet ETc reaches between 657 mm and 917 mm in the growing season. NIR ranges from 614 mm to 886 mm in the aforesaid basin.