Water Saving and Increasing Water Productivity Using New Planting Methods for Wheat Crop

The main purpose of this article is to estimate the impact of the direct rice sowing (DRS) technology on irrigation water saving in the Indo-Gangetic plains. For this study, a comprehensive data set was collected from the rice-wheat area of the Pakistani Punjab. In total, 238 farmers were interviewed from the three major rice-producing districts i.e. Gujranwala, Sheikhupura and Hafizabad. The empirical analysis was carried out by employing the propensity score matching approach to correct for potential sample selection bias that may arise due to systematic differences between the participants and non-participants. The empirical results indicate that the DRS technology is a water saving technology and, on average, the adopters need four less irrigation as compared to the traditional transplanting method. The DRS technology is also labour saving and requires less labour than the conventional rice sowing technology. The water productivity of the DRS technology is also higher as compared to the conventional transplanting method. The DRS technology also has a beneficial yield impact on the subsequent wheat crop. However, the major problem with the DRS technology is weed infestation which needs to be addressed. Farm size analysis indicates that DRS technology has a positive impact for all farmers and particularly on the small and medium scale farmers.

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Enhancement of water productivity with surge irrigation

INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF AGRICULTURAL SCIENCES ◽

10.15740/has/ijas/17-aaebssd/340-347 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 17 (AAEBSSD) ◽

pp. 340-347

Author(s):

Sumandeep Kaur ◽

Arun Kaushal ◽

Pramodkumar Shelke

Keyword(s):

Irrigation Water ◽

Continuous Flow ◽

Irrigation System ◽

Water Productivity ◽

Water Saving ◽

Wheat Crop ◽

Limiting Factor ◽

Inflow Rate ◽

Continuous Irrigation ◽

Surge Irrigation

Surge irrigation is the intermittent application of water to surface irrigated furrows or borders in a series of relatively short on and off time periods during the irrigation which may be between 20 minutes to two hours. In this technique, water is usually applied intermittently rather than with a continuous stream, as in conventional surface irrigation..Water productivity and water saving of six crops viz. wheat, cotton, maize, capsicum, onion and fennel under surge irrigation were compared with traditional method for the crops grown in different environmental conditions at different location of the world.It is concluded that surge flow irrigation performs better than continuous flow irrigation in terms of water saving and yield resulting in enhancement of water productivity. In case of wheat crop, surge irrigation saved and decreased irrigation water by 27, 33.4 and 37.4 % and increased yield by 15.1, 17.7 and 12.7 % under slope of 0.0, 0.1 and 0.2 % respectively compared with continuous flow irrigation for the same discharge. It had the maximum water use efficiency values of 1.39, 1.56 and 1.59 kg/m3 for surge flow irrigation under slopes of 0.0, 0.1 and 0.2 %, respectively.Surge irrigation system for maize obtained the highest value of WUE (1.63 kg/m3) with 40 m furrow length under 12.24 l/min inflow rate, while the lowest value of WUE obtained by continuous irrigation system, with 20 m furrow length under 44.4 l/min inflow rate (1.05 kg/m3). It can be applied by farmers in areas where irrigation water is limiting factor in crop production and farmers cannot afford costly micro-irrigation system.

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Treadle pump: A low cost irrigation option for marginal farmers

Journal of AgriSearch ◽

10.21921/jas.5.3.10 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 5 (03) ◽

Author(s):

ATIQUR RAHMAN ◽

ASHUTOSH UPADHYAYA ◽

BP BHATT

Keyword(s):

Low Cost ◽

Water Productivity ◽

High Water ◽

Water Saving ◽

Age Group ◽

Male And Female ◽

Human Power ◽

Dry Spells ◽

Supplementary Irrigation ◽

Land Holdings

The population of marginal farmers in India is bound to increase due to continued division of farm holdings. Characteristically, marginal farmers are having more family labours but the production and productivity of their land holdings is low. The foremost reason behind this is the erratic rainfall and lack of assure supplementary irrigation during long dry spells. This paper presents the scope and applicability of a diaphragm based treadle pump in Bihar where groundwater is abundant and available at shallow depths round the year. Therefore, this pump could be very useful for marginal farmers in improving production and productivity of their tiny piece of land, as it uses human power and can be operated by male and female of age group 32- 45 years and lifts water from a depth ranging from 0- 30 feet. The water saving technologies such as bucket kit drum kit etc. could be used with this pump to irrigate the crops with high water productivity.

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