Effect of Irrigation Regimes on Alfalfa Productivity and Quality under Saline Calcareous Soil Conditions

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

1 Water Requir. and Field Irrigation. Research Dept., Soil water and Environment Research Institute, ARC. Egypt.

2 Forage Research Department, Field Crops Research Institute, ARC, Egypt.

Abstract

A field experiment was conducted at Nubaria Agricultural Research Station during 2016/2017 and 2017/2018 to study the effect of irrigation regimes under saline calcareous soil on fresh and dry yields, quality, water requirements and productivity. Four irrigation regimes with amount of water equals potential evapotranspiration were used as irrigation with amount of water equal potential evapotranspiration (ETp) plus 10%, 20%, 30% and/or 40% as leaching requirements (LR). Average of calcareous soil salinity treatments were S1 equal 2 dSm-1, S2 equal 6 dSm-1 and S3 equal 10 dSm-1. Results indicated that there were significant effects among irrigation and soil salinity treatments on fresh and dry alfalfa yields through the combination of two years. The highest values of fresh and dry yields were 217.736 and 49.861 ton/ha, respectively that was obtained by I1S1 interaction, while the lowest values were 140.0 and 35.91 ton/ha was obtained by I4S2 interaction. Fresh and dry yields were decreased by 28.4 and 18.13% at I1S2 and by 14.6 and 13.19% at I1S3, respectively compared with that obtained by I1S1. Results of I3S3 and I4S3 were given the highest values of N and CP percentages. The water requirements values for alfalfa were 126.0, 135.2, 144.3 and 153.9 cm in the first year, while in the second year they were 128.8, 140.2, 152.0 and 163.8 cm for irrigation treatments, respectively. Also, the highest values of the productivity of irrigation water (PIW) were 8.93 and 8.17 kg/m3 water in 1st and 2nd years, which was I1S1.

Keywords

Journal of Plant Production
Volume 10, Issue 12
December 2019
Pages 1131-1138

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