Effect of drip irrigation on yield and water use efficiency of summer rice cultivation in pots

Abstract

The field experiment was conducted at the Instructional Farm of Faculty of Agricultural Engineering, BCKV, Nadia, West Bengal during the year of 2016-17. The study was conducted with the objectives to determine the water requirements of summer rice under drip irrigation, to compare the water requirements of summer rice under drip and conventional (flooding) irrigation and yield of summer rice cultivation under drip irrigation. In the study, there were four irrigation treatments with four replications. The different irrigation treatments were (i) T1- Conventional irrigation with 5 cm of water in each irrigation after disappearance of water, (ii) T2-0.8 Epan under drip irrigation @ 4 l/h at 3 days interval, (iii) T3-1.0 Epan under drip irrigation @ 4 l/h at 3 days interval and (iv) T4-1.2 Epan under drip irrigation @ 4 l/h at 3 days interval. The amount of irrigation water required under drip irrigation at 0.8 Epan treatments had been found to be the lowest i.e., 258 mm and the highest value was 365 mm at 1.2 Epan treatments and in conventional irrigation system it was found 600 mm. The water requirements under drip irrigation for all the treatments were less as compared to conventional (flooding) irrigation. The average yield at T1, T2, T3 and T4 treatments were 2.29 t/ha, 3.10 t/ha, 2.44 t/ha and 2.54 t/ha respectively. It was also observed that the water use efficiency was found to be the highest at the treatment of 0.8 Epan of drip irrigation was 8.126 t/ ha-cm. This indicated that the average yield and WUE were found more under the drip system in compare to conventional system.