Abstract
Different water management strategies should be investigated to ensure adequate water supply to furrow-irrigated soybean plants in lowlands. This study examined the performance and efficiency of furrow irrigation techniques and related them to the soybean yield potential in lowland fields of Southern Brazil in the 2017/18 growing season. An experiment was conducted on raised seedbeds to evaluate furrow irrigation techniques: full irrigation with cutback, irrigation during the advance phase with low inflow, irrigation during the advance phase (cutoff), surge irrigation, and no irrigation. The design parameters, efficiency of the techniques, agronomic characteristics, and the grain yield of the soybean crop, were evaluated. The overall performance of the cutback technique in furrow irrigation was superior, followed by the surge irrigation, cutoff, and low inflow techniques. Furrow irrigation increased soybean yield in lowlands, and the cutback technique was the best to guarantee the soybean yield potential in lowlands, resulting in a 29% yield increase compared to non-irrigated.
Highlights
The soybean cultivation in lowland fields of Rio Grande do Sul (RS), Brazil, which was traditionally used for irrigated rice, is a recent growing phenomenon driven mainly by the need for diversification
The advance phase stabilized owing to the consolidation of the soil infiltration characteristics in the furrows, which was observed in all techniques (Table 1)
On the basis that the other implementation and management costs are similar for both crop systems, discounting the average irrigation cost from the gross production value (GPV) (Table 2) obtained for the cutback technique, the maximum return associated with the use of irrigation in relation to rainfed system was US $ 496.19. These results demonstrate the great potential of furrow irrigation for soybean in lowlands, which, in addition to ensuring safer weather conditions and increased production stability, has a reduced price and represents a significant economic return
Summary
The soybean cultivation in lowland fields of Rio Grande do Sul (RS), Brazil, which was traditionally used for irrigated rice, is a recent growing phenomenon driven mainly by the need for diversification. Some adjustments should be made in these areas before the introduction of soybean, because the areas are inappropriate for this crop production in varying degrees (Vernetti Junior et al, 2009; Bueno et al, 2020). Factors such as geographical location, land position and slope, and soil physical characteristics of the lowlands of Rio Grande do Sul contribute to the occurrences of waterlogging and, paradoxically, water deficit, which are considered to be the main limiting factors for the expression of soybean yield potential in lowlands (Goulart et al, 2020). Raised seedbeds improves the physical characteristics of the soil and allows the use of a furrow irrigation system (Sartori et al, 2015; Giacomeli et al, 2016; Sartori et al, 2016)
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