Evaluating optimal irrigation strategies for maize in Western Kansas

A. Araya, P.V.V. Prasad, P.H. Gowda, V. Sharda, C.W. Rice and I.A. Ciampitti

Agricultural Water Management, 2021, vol. 246, issue C

Abstract: A calibrated and validated Decision Support System for Agro-technology Transfer – Cropping System Model (DSSAT-CSM), CERES-Maize, was used to (1) evaluate maize (Zea mays L.) yield and water productivities (WP) under various irrigation frequencies (IRF) triggered by different plant available soil water (PASW) on three soil types, and (2) assess the optimum IRF and PASW triggers for maximum yield and water productivity on three different soils (with a depth of 1.2 m) in Finney County, Western Kansas. The treatments were four IRF (2, 4, 7, and 9 days), four PASW (5%, 25%, 50% and 75%) irrigation trigger and three soil types with a total of 48 combinations. The model was set to automatically apply 25 mm irrigation at selected day intervals when certain irrigation triggering PASW conditions were met. This study showed that maintaining higher PASW up to 75% or above might result in too many irrigations per season, which could be costly. IRF-9 showed substantially lowest yield under most PASW tested in this study. The highest yield was simulated at irrigation amount of 400–450 mm and ET of 650–800 mm depending on soil types. The highest irrigation water productivity (IWP, 30–33 kg/ha/mm) was simulated when triggered by 25% and 50% PASW for Ulysses silt loams. Overall, IRF-4 under 50% PASW threshold provided the maximum maize yield and WP for all soil types.

Keywords: Soil water; DSSAT; Irrigation capacity; Scheduling; Ogallala; Kansas (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0378377420322216
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:agiwat:v:246:y:2021:i:c:s0378377420322216

DOI: 10.1016/j.agwat.2020.106677

Access Statistics for this article

Agricultural Water Management is currently edited by B.E. Clothier, W. Dierickx, J. Oster and D. Wichelns

More articles in Agricultural Water Management from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().