MAXIMIZING OF SURFACE IRRIGATION PERFORMANCE ON GROWTH AND PRODUCTION OF COWPEA IN CLAY SOIL

Abstract

Alternate furrow irrigation (AFI) is gaining interest as a mean of saving water while minimizing loss in crop production. Field experiment was conducted in the Experimental Farm, Faculty of Agriculture, Kafrelsheikh University, Egypt, during growing season of 2016-2017. The present work included the following: Irrigation systems (Furrow surface irrigation and surface drip irrigation (SDI)). However, different techniques had been investigated with surface irrigation (alternative furrow (AFI) and conventional furrow irrigation (CFI) with a furrow length of 20, 30 and 40 m. The experiment was designed as split plot with three replications, where irrigation systems used as the main plot and furrow length as sub-plot. The ranges of mean cowpea yield gained from irrigation system were 932.33, 910.52 and 1179.52 kg/fed for CFI, AFI and SDI respectively. The effect of furrow length and their interaction with irrigation system on yield were non-significant but the irrigation system has significant effect on yield (P<0.01). The maximum and minimum yield was obtained at length of 20 m for SDI and length of 40 m for AFI, which were 34.37 kg and 25.26 kg, respectively. The effect of irrigation system on the water use efficiency (WUE) was significant (p<0.01). The average WUE was decreased from 11.57 to 8.10 kg/m3 when the furrow length increased from 20 m to 40 m. The range of mean values of WUE due to the effect of furrow length from 20 to 40m was highly significant (P<0.01) only. The average of WUE was increased from 5.81 to 9.87 and 13.41 kg/m3 for CFI, AFI and SDI systems, respectively. The highest and lowest values of irrigation depth (ID), water application efficiency (WAE), water distribution efficiency (WDE) and applied water (AW) were 17.65-10.12cm, 75.25-52.46 %, 73.37 -36.45% and 61.20.