The Effect of Irrigation With Saline Water On Evapotranspiration and Water Use Efficiency of Maize Under Different Crop anagement

Abstract

In order to evaluate the effect of different crop management methods and irrigation with saline water on evapotranspiration and water use efficiency of Maize, the factorial experiment with randomized complete block design was conducted. This project was carried out in the Agricultural farm of Shahid Chamran University of Ahvaz from March to June 2015. Different crop managements include without crop residues, use of crop residues on soil surface as mulch and mix of crop residues with surface soil layer to 30 cm depth and water irrigation salinity include water salinity of Karoun river (2dS/m), 4.5 and 7 dS/m. The results of variance analysis showed that the effect of salinity, crop management and their interaction effect on evapotranspiration, yield and water use efficiency was significant. Minimum values of ET (387.5mm) and WUE (0.68 kg/m3) were obtained at the salinity level of 7 dS/m. The management of residues use as mulch had the most effect on ET decrease (9%) and yield increase (10%) and So, the maximum WUE (1.10 kg/m3) was obtained at it too. The greatest impact of residues applications mulch and mixing with soil surface layer in increasing of yield (19% and 9% respectively) and WUE (27.6% and 10.6%, respectively) compared to non-use of residues was observed at the salinity level of 4.5 dS/m. Therefore, the use of crop residues particularly as mulch can be recommended as an effective way to reduce the damage of irrigation with saline water.

Keywords

• saline water
• maize
• mulch
• crop management
• evapotranspiration