Abstract
Water is a scarce resource in Central Rift Valley of Ethiopia and is a major limiting factor for crop production. Onion is one of the major economically important vegetable crops grown under irrigation in central rift valley. The field experiment was conducted at Melkasa agricultural research center during the dry season to identify irrigation method and irrigation application level with and without mulch that maximizes productivity of onion per unit of water consumed and enhanced onion crop production. The experiment was carried out using split plot design inRCBD having twelve treatments with three replications.The FAO’s recommended allowable Manageable depletion level of onion is 100%. In this study 75%, 100% recommended and 125% were tested. The experiment consisted of two irrigation methods viz.,furrow irrigation and drip irrigation as main plot and three levels of Manageable allowable depletion viz., 125%, 100% and 75% with and without mulch as sub-plot.The analysis of variance revealed that irrigation methods and management allowed depletion levels had a significant and p<0.05) effect on onion vegetative parameters like plant height, leaf height and yield parameters like bulb diameter, bulb height, total bulb yield, marketable bulb yield, and water productivity. The highest and lowest onion vegetative and yield parameters were obtained from drip irrigation and furrow irrigation method, respectively. Moreover, the highest and lowest onion vegetative and yield parameters were obtained from drip irrigation under 75% MAD with mulch and furrow irrigation under125% MAD without mulch, respectively. Further, their interaction had a significant effect on total bulb yield and water productivity. The maximum total bulb yield (37.1 ton/ha), marketable bulb yield (33.1 ton/ha), bulb diameter (5.6 cm), crop water use efficiency (0.78 kg/m 3 )and irrigation water use efficiency, (0.60 kg/m 3 ) were observed from drip irrigation method at 75% MAD with mulch application, while significantly lower as (30.5 ton/ha), (26.7 ton/ha), (5.0 cm), (0.53 kg/m 3 )and (0.40 kg/m 3 ) respectively were recorded from furrow irrigation method at 125% MAD with out mulch application. Generally, drip irrigation was working efficiently according to its design and economically acceptable. Among all tested treatments drip irrigation method under 75% MAD with mulch was the best practice because of its high yield and water productivity . Keywords : Drip irrigation, Furrow irrigation, MAD, Onion, Water Use Efficiency DOI: 10.7176/JNSR/12-15-02 Publication date: August 31 st 2021
Highlights
Water is man kind’s most vital and versatile natural resource
The result of this study indicated that, increasing in the irrigation water application level in the order of plastic mulching and no mulching respectively resulted a corresponding decreasing of mean crop water use efficiency values
The result of this study indicated that, increasing in the irrigation water application level in the order of plastic mulching and no mulching respectively resulted a corresponding decreasing of mean irrigation water use efficiency values
Summary
Water is man kind’s most vital and versatile natural resource. It is considered as an essential resource for irrigation. Irrigation can be defined as an artificial application of water to soil for the purpose of supplying the moisture essential in the plant root-zone to prevent stress that may cause reduced yield and/or poor quality of harvest of crops (Reddy, 2010). The sector is facing increasing challenges in the face of rapid population growth, decreasing availability of land and competition for scarce water resources. With an increasing population and less water available for agricultural production, the food security for future generations is at stake. The key challenge for future is growing more food with less water by way of increasing crop water productivity (CWP). A higher CWP results in either the same production from fewer water resources, or a higher production from the same water resources, so this is of direct benefit for other water users (Kijne et al, 2003)
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