Estimating Water Use Efficiency for Major Crops in Chihuahua, Mexico: Crop Yield Function Models vs. Evapotranspiration
Octavio Villalobos-Cano (),
Eduardo Santellano-Estrada,
Blair L. Stringam,
Kulbhushan Grover () and
Edgar Esparza-Vela
Additional contact information
Octavio Villalobos-Cano: School of Agricultural and Forestry Sciences, Universidad Autónoma de Chihuahua, Km 2.5 Carretera Delicias-Rosales, Delicias 33000, Chihuahua, Mexico
Eduardo Santellano-Estrada: School of Husbandry and Ecology, Universidad Autónoma de Chihuahua, Km 1 Periférico R. Almada, Colonia Zootecnia, Chihuahua 31000, Chihuahua, Mexico
Blair L. Stringam: Department of Plant & Environment Sciences, New Mexico State University, Las Cruces, NM 88003, USA
Kulbhushan Grover: Department of Plant & Environment Sciences, New Mexico State University, Las Cruces, NM 88003, USA
Edgar Esparza-Vela: School of Husbandry and Ecology, Universidad Autónoma de Chihuahua, Km 1 Periférico R. Almada, Colonia Zootecnia, Chihuahua 31000, Chihuahua, Mexico
Sustainability, 2024, vol. 16, issue 5, 1-11
Abstract:
Water use in agriculture is a critical aspect of sustainable food production. Efficient water management is essential to address both yield optimization and environmental concerns. The current study evaluated the water diversions by the Irrigation District 05—Delicias (DR-05), in the State of Chihuahua, Mexico, for four major crops grown in the region including alfalfa, chile, pecans and peanuts. The amounts of water applied to raise these crops were compared to the amounts of water use estimated with the evapotranspiration (ET) method and with the crop yield function model, and respective water use efficiencies were estimated with both the methods. The water use efficiency measured using the ET estimation (WUE-ET) for alfalfa ranged from 60.9% to 70.4%, while the water use efficiency derived from the yield function data (WUE-YF) showed lower values and ranged from 43.6% to 59.7%. In the case of chile, the opposite trends were observed than in alfalfa, with the WUE-ET for chile ranging from 47.7% to 54.8%, and WUE-YF showing higher values that ranged from 49% to 70%. In the case of peanuts and pecans, only the WUE-ET was estimated and it ranged from 55.9% to 68.8% for peanuts and 90.9% to 116.9% pecans, respectively. Among the four crops studied, pecans were found to have the highest WUE-ET, with values of WUE-ET reaching higher than 100%. However, it is to be noted that these high values of water use efficiencies are more indicative that pecans are probably under irrigated.
Keywords: water use efficiency; crop yield function; evapotranspiration; Delicias; Chihuahua; Mexico; alfalfa; pecan; chile; peanuts (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)
Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/16/5/1851/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/16/5/1851/ (text/html)
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:gam:jsusta:v:16:y:2024:i:5:p:1851-:d:1344770
Access Statistics for this article
Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu
More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().