Vol. 11, Issue 1 (2022)

Author(s):
DD Vadalia and GV Prajapati

Abstract:
An experiment was conducted at Research cum demonstration Farm, RTTC, Junagadh Agricultural University during year 2017-18 to determine crop coefficients of wheat (GW-366) under different land configurations (broad bed furrow L1 and flat land L2) and irrigation systems (drip irrigation S1 and surface irrigation S2) with two irrigation levels (1.0 ETc I1 and 0.8 ETc I2). Soil moisture sensors were installed to monitor daily fluctuations of soil moisture which were utilized to calculate actual crop evapotranspiration. Results revealed that adjusted FAO Kc predicts higher value than sensor based Kc values at both irrigation levels. Sensor based Kc-ini, Kc-dev, Kc-mid and Kc-end under flat land configuration with drip irrigation scheduled at 0.8 ETc were lower by 22.25%, 17.44%, 19.61% and 25.17% over adjusted FAO Kc-ini, Kc-dev, Kc-mid and Kc-end respectively and 51.35%, 30.42%, 16.81% and 28.80% over flat land configuration with surface irrigation at 1.0 ETc respectively. Broad bed furrow (BBF) land configuration with drip irrigation observed lower sensor based Kc-ini, Kc-dev, Kc-mid and Kc-end by 53.81%, 34.15%, 15.91% and 28.39% and 51.47%, 34.14%, 17.36% and 21.93% than flat land configuration with surface irrigation at 1.0 ETc and 0.8 ETc respectively. P-M ETc over estimated irrigation water by 106.18mm (38.28%) and 194.25mm (36.67%), 249.29mm (59.61%) and 89.43mm (30.40%), 49.23mm (19.11%) and 93.05mm (19.14%), and 153.54mm (40.36%) and 44.78mm (17.09%) than sensor based irrigation under L1S1, L2S2, L1S2 and L2S1 at I1 and I2 respectively. The results provide estimates of ET0, ETc and Kc for use in irrigation scheduling of wheat crop planted in Junagadh region or elsewhere with similar environmental conditions.