scholarly journals Nutritional yield and nutritional water productivity of cowpea (Vigna unguiculata L. Walp) under varying irrigation water regimes

Water SA ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 46 (3 July) ◽  
Author(s):  
Edwin Kimutai Kanda ◽  
Aidan Senzanje ◽  
Tafadzwanashe Mabhaudhi ◽  
Shadrack Chisenga Mubanga

There is a need to mainstream traditional crops in sub-Saharan Africa, in order to tackle food and nutritional insecurity through incorporating nutritional quality into crop water productivity, in the wider context of the water–food–nutrition–health nexus.  The objective of the study was to determine the effect of irrigation water regimes on the nutritional yield (NY) and nutritional water productivity (NWP) of cowpea under Moistube irrigation (MTI) and subsurface drip irrigation (SDI). We hypothesized that NY and NWP of cowpea were not different under MTI and SDI and that deficit irrigation improved NWP. The experiment was laid as a split-plot design arranged in randomized complete blocks, replicated 3 times, with 3 irrigation water regimes: 100% of crop evapotranspiration (ETc), 70% of ETc, and 40% of ETc. Irrigation type and water regime did not significantly (p > 0.05) affect the nutritional quality of cowpea.  Similarly, NWP of crude fat (28.20–39.20 g∙m-3), ash (47.20–50.70 g∙m-3) and crude fibre (30.70–48.10 g∙m-3) did not vary significantly. However, protein and carbohydrate NWP showed significant (p < 0.05) differences across irrigation water regimes and irrigation type. The highest protein NWP (276.20 g∙m-3) was attained under MTI at 100% ETc, which was significantly (p < 0.05) higher than SDI (237.1 g∙m-3) and MTI (189.8 g∙m-3) at 40% ETc. Cowpea is suited for production in water-scarce environments; however, there are trade-offs with carbohydrate NWP. This should not be of concern as often diets are already energy-dense but lacking in other micronutrients.

Foods ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 385
Author(s):  
Sandile T. Hadebe ◽  
Albert T. Modi ◽  
Tafadzwanashe Mabhaudhi

Lack of cereal nutritional water productivity (NWP) information disadvantages linkages of nutrition to water–food nexus as staple food crops in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). This study determined the suitability of sorghum (Sorghum bicolor L. Moench) genotypes to alleviate protein, Zn and Fe deficiency under water-scarce dryland conditions through evaluation of NWP. Sorghum genotypes (Macia, Ujiba, PAN8816, IsiZulu) NWP was quantified from three planting seasons for various sorghum seed nutrients under dryland semi-arid conditions. Seasons by genotypes interaction highly and significantly affected NWPStarch, Ca, Cu, Fe, and significantly affected NWPMg, K, Na, P, Zn. Genotypic variations highly and significantly affected sorghum NWPProtein, Mn. Macia exhibited statistically superior NWPprotein (13.2–14.6 kg·m−3) and NWPZn (2.0–2.6 g·m−3) compared to other tested genotypes, while Macia NWPFe (2.6–2.7 g·m−3) was considerably inferior to that of Ujiba and IsiZulu landraces under increased water scarcity. Excellent overall NWPprotein, Fe and Zn under water scarcity make Macia a well-rounded genotype suitable to alleviating food and nutritional insecurity challenges in semi-arid SSA; however, landraces are viable alternatives with limited NWPprotein and Zn penalty under water-limited conditions. These results underline genotype selection as a vital tool in improving “nutrition per drop” in semi-arid regions.


2015 ◽  
Vol 19 (7) ◽  
pp. 3073-3091 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. Jägermeyr ◽  
D. Gerten ◽  
J. Heinke ◽  
S. Schaphoff ◽  
M. Kummu ◽  
...  

Abstract. Global agricultural production is heavily sustained by irrigation, but irrigation system efficiencies are often surprisingly low. However, our knowledge of irrigation efficiencies is mostly confined to rough indicative estimates for countries or regions that do not account for spatiotemporal heterogeneity due to climate and other biophysical dependencies. To allow for refined estimates of global agricultural water use, and of water saving and water productivity potentials constrained by biophysical processes and also non-trivial downstream effects, we incorporated a process-based representation of the three major irrigation systems (surface, sprinkler, and drip) into a bio- and agrosphere model, LPJmL. Based on this enhanced model we provide a gridded world map of irrigation efficiencies that are calculated in direct linkage to differences in system types, crop types, climatic and hydrologic conditions, and overall crop management. We find pronounced regional patterns in beneficial irrigation efficiency (a refined irrigation efficiency indicator accounting for crop-productive water consumption only), due to differences in these features, with the lowest values (< 30 %) in south Asia and sub-Saharan Africa and the highest values (> 60 %) in Europe and North America. We arrive at an estimate of global irrigation water withdrawal of 2469 km3 (2004–2009 average); irrigation water consumption is calculated to be 1257 km3, of which 608 km3 are non-beneficially consumed, i.e., lost through evaporation, interception, and conveyance. Replacing surface systems by sprinkler or drip systems could, on average across the world's river basins, reduce the non-beneficial consumption at river basin level by 54 and 76 %, respectively, while maintaining the current level of crop yields. Accordingly, crop water productivity would increase by 9 and 15 %, respectively, and by much more in specific regions such as in the Indus basin. This study significantly advances the global quantification of irrigation systems while providing a framework for assessing potential future transitions in these systems. In this paper, presented opportunities associated with irrigation improvements are significant and suggest that they should be considered an important means on the way to sustainable food security.


2010 ◽  
Vol 107 (46) ◽  
pp. 19661-19666 ◽  
Author(s):  
C. A. Palm ◽  
S. M. Smukler ◽  
C. C. Sullivan ◽  
P. K. Mutuo ◽  
G. I. Nyadzi ◽  
...  

2016 ◽  
Vol 371 (1703) ◽  
pp. 20150316 ◽  
Author(s):  
L. D. Estes ◽  
T. Searchinger ◽  
M. Spiegel ◽  
D. Tian ◽  
S. Sichinga ◽  
...  

Rapidly rising populations and likely increases in incomes in sub-Saharan Africa make tens of millions of hectares of cropland expansion nearly inevitable, even with large increases in crop yields. Much of that expansion is likely to occur in higher rainfall savannas, with substantial costs to biodiversity and carbon storage. Zambia presents an acute example of this challenge, with an expected tripling of population by 2050, good potential to expand maize and soya bean production, and large areas of relatively undisturbed miombo woodland and associated habitat types of high biodiversity value. Here, we present a new model designed to explore the potential for targeting agricultural expansion in ways that achieve quantitatively optimal trade-offs between competing economic and environmental objectives: total converted land area (the reciprocal of potential yield); carbon loss, biodiversity loss and transportation costs. To allow different interests to find potential compromises, users can apply varying weights to examine the effects of their subjective preferences on the spatial allocation of new cropland and its costs. We find that small compromises from the objective to convert the highest yielding areas permit large savings in transportation costs, and the carbon and biodiversity impacts resulting from savannah conversion. For example, transferring just 30% of weight from a yield-maximizing objective equally between carbon and biodiversity protection objectives would increase total cropland area by just 2.7%, but result in avoided costs of 27–47% for carbon, biodiversity and transportation. Compromise solutions tend to focus agricultural expansion along existing transportation corridors and in already disturbed areas. Used appropriately, this type of model could help countries find agricultural expansion alternatives and related infrastructure and land use policies that help achieve production targets while helping to conserve Africa's rapidly transforming savannahs. This article is part of the themed issue ‘Tropical grassy biomes: linking ecology, human use and conservation’.


Author(s):  
Wilfred Damndja Ngaha ◽  
Richard Aba Ejoh ◽  
Edith Nig Fombang ◽  
William Dzusuo Tedom

Toddlers malnutrition is a health problem in developing countries like those found in Sub-Saharan Africa. Owing to prevalence of poverty, families are generally not able to afford the commercial complementary foods available in the market stalls, since such complementary foods are imported and made from non-local foodstuffs. In order to overcome these issues, FAO/WHO recommends the use of local foodstuffs in formulation of complementary foods and defines the virtues that the complementary foods should possess. In this light, researchers in Sub-Saharan Africa have proposed several formulations of complementary foods. The present work reviews these research findings on complementary foods available in the Sub-Saharan Africa utilizing the local food materials, the treatment that is required to be meted to such food ingredients, nutritional quality of formulated complementary foods and ultimately their biological effects. The limitations of the research work, if any, has been highlighted and the means to take such research forward that would be helpful in the production and commercialization of cost-effective complementary foods possessing requisite nutritional quality and biological effects as per dietary norms laid down by competent authorities.


2020 ◽  
Vol 41 (03) ◽  
Author(s):  
Sachin Himmatrao Malve ◽  
Ashok Saini ◽  
Praveen Rao V

Water is one of the most essential natural resource, which is often costly and limiting input particularly in arid and Semi-arid. Since water is the life line for accruing desired yield levels, its time of application, method of application and quantity applied levels besides saving water. Further, there is a need for judicious use of water to reap the maximum benefit from this limiting resource. Off late, amongst irrigation methods, drip irrigation plays a vital role in economizing irrigation water, higher water use efficiency and enhancing crop yield in water scarce areas. Many research findings also confirm considerable saving in irrigation water through adoption of precise irrigation method like drip irrigation. The response of wheat to surface check basin and drip irrigation is reviewed.


Climate ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 7 (10) ◽  
pp. 124 ◽  
Author(s):  
Abdoulaye Oumarou Abdoulaye ◽  
Haishen Lu ◽  
Yonghua Zhu ◽  
Yousef Alhaj Hamoud ◽  
Mohamed Sheteiwy

Irrigated production around the world has significantly increased over the last decade. However, climate change is a new threat that could seriously aggravate the irrigation water supplies and request. In this study, the data is derived from the IPCC Fifth Assessment Report (AR5). For the climate change scenarios, five Global Climate Models (GCMs) have been used. By using the CROPWAT approach of Smith, the net irrigation water requirement (IRnet) was calculated. For the estimation of the potential evapotranspiration (Epot), the method in Raziei and Pereira was used. According to representative concentration pathway (RCP) 4.5, these increases vary between 0.74% (North America) and 20.92% (North America) while the RCP 8.5 predict increases of 4.06% (sub-Saharan Africa) to more than 68% (North America). The results also show that the region of Latin America is the region with the large amount of IRnet with coprime value between 1.39 km3/yr (GFDL 4.5) and 1.48 km3/yr (CSIRO 4.5) while sub-Saharan Africa has the smallest IRnet amount between 0.13 km3/yr (GFDL 8.5) and 0.14 km3/yr (ECHAM 8.5). However, the most affected countries by this impact are those in sub-Saharan Africa. This study will probably help decision-makers to make corrections in making their decision.


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