IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/agiwat/v173y2016icp55-60.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Alternate furrow irrigation can radically improve water productivity of okra

Author

Listed:
  • Siyal, A.A.
  • Mashori, A.S.
  • Bristow, K.L.
  • van Genuchten, M.Th.

Abstract

Alternate furrow irrigation (AFI) is gaining interest as a means of saving water while minimising loss in crop production. Given the potential water savings of AFI, a field experiment was conducted in the Tandojam region of Pakistan by growing okra with AFI and conventional furrow irrigation (CFI) in which every furrow is irrigated. Our results show that total irrigation water applied in the AFI treatment was roughly half (248±2.9mm) that applied to the CFI treatment (497±1.7mm). Despite the very significant reduction in irrigation water used with AFI there was a non-significant (p>0.05) reduction (7.3%) in okra yield. As a result, we also obtained a significantly (p<0.001) higher crop water productivity (CWP) of 5.29±0.1kgm−3 with AFI, which was nearly double the 2.78±0.04kgm−3 obtained with CFI. While this reduction in yield and/or potential income may appear small, it could be critical to the welfare of individual farmers, who may as a result hesitate to make changes from CFI to AFI if they are worse off than farmers who do not adopt AFI. This situation exists because current water charges are based on crop and land area rather than the volume of water being accessed for irrigation. Transitioning from the current crop and land area based method of charging for water to a volumetric method may require investment in irrigation system changes and may take time to accomplish. These are important lessons for other countries, and particularly developing countries who are trying to improve the environmental, social and economic performance of their irrigated systems. We recommend that further studies be carried out using AFI to determine whether similar water savings and flow-on benefits can be achieved across a wide range of cropping systems in arid and semi-arid environments.

Suggested Citation

  • Siyal, A.A. & Mashori, A.S. & Bristow, K.L. & van Genuchten, M.Th., 2016. "Alternate furrow irrigation can radically improve water productivity of okra," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 173(C), pages 55-60.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:agiwat:v:173:y:2016:i:c:p:55-60
    DOI: 10.1016/j.agwat.2016.04.026
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0378377416301512
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.agwat.2016.04.026?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Kang, Shaozhong & Liang, Zongsuo & Pan, Yinhua & Shi, Peize & Zhang, Jianhua, 2000. "Alternate furrow irrigation for maize production in an arid area," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 45(3), pages 267-274, August.
    2. Horst, M.G. & Shamutalov, S.S. & Pereira, L.S. & Goncalves, J.M., 2005. "Field assessment of the water saving potential with furrow irrigation in Fergana, Aral Sea basin," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 77(1-3), pages 210-231, August.
    3. Ahmadi, Seyed Hamid & Andersen, Mathias N. & Plauborg, Finn & Poulsen, Rolf T. & Jensen, Christian R. & Sepaskhah, Ali Reza & Hansen, Søren, 2010. "Effects of irrigation strategies and soils on field-grown potatoes: Gas exchange and xylem [ABA]," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 97(10), pages 1486-1494, October.
    4. Du, Taisheng & Kang, Shaozhong & Sun, Jingsheng & Zhang, Xiying & Zhang, Jianhua, 2010. "An improved water use efficiency of cereals under temporal and spatial deficit irrigation in north China," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 97(1), pages 66-74, January.
    5. Easter, K. W., 2005. "Cost recovery and water pricing for irrigation and drainage projects," IWMI Working Papers H046176, International Water Management Institute.
    6. Mahmood Ul Hassan & M. Ghaffar Chaudhry, 1998. "Assessing Water Charges under Changing Institutional Irrigation Management in Pakistan: A Methodological Framework," The Pakistan Development Review, Pakistan Institute of Development Economics, vol. 37(1), pages 1-17.
    7. Crabtree, R. J. & Yassin, A. A. & Kargougou, I. & McNew, R. W., 1985. "Effects of alternate-furrow irrigation: Water conservation on the yields of two soybean cultivars," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 10(3), pages 253-264, November.
    8. K. William Easter & Yang Liu, 2005. "Cost Recovery and Water Pricing for Irrigation and Drainage : What Works?," World Bank Publications - Reports 9648, The World Bank Group.
    9. Stone, John F. & Reeves, H. E. & Garton, J. E., 1982. "Irrigation water conservation by using wide-spaced furrows," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 5(4), pages 309-317, December.
    10. Stone, J. F. & Nofziger, D. L., 1993. "Water use and yields of cotton grown under wide-spaced furrow irrigation," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 24(1), pages 27-38, September.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Waqas, Muhammad Sohail & Cheema, Muhammad Jehanzeb Masud & Hussain, Saddam & Ullah, Muhammad Kaleem & Iqbal, Muhammad Mazhar, 2021. "Delayed irrigation: An approach to enhance crop water productivity and to investigate its effects on potato yield and growth parameters," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 245(C).
    2. Wei Qu & Yanmei Tan & Zhentao Li & Eefje Aarnoudse & Qin Tu, 2020. "Agricultural Water Use Efficiency—A Case Study of Inland-River Basins in Northwest China," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(23), pages 1-18, December.
    3. Wei, Jun & Cui, Yuanlai & Zhou, Sihang & Luo, Yufeng, 2022. "Regional water-saving potential calculation method for paddy rice based on remote sensing," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 267(C).
    4. Malika Mahmoudi & Mohamed Naceur Khelil & Sarra Hechmi & Basma Latrech & Rim Ghrib & Abdelhamid Boujlben & Samir Yacoubi, 2022. "Effect of Surface and Subsurface Drip Irrigation with Treated Wastewater on Soil and Water Productivity of Okra ( Abemoschus esculentus ) Crop in Semi-Arid Region of Tunisia," Agriculture, MDPI, vol. 12(12), pages 1-13, November.
    5. Simons, G.W.H. & Bastiaanssen, W.G.M. & Cheema, M.J.M. & Ahmad, B. & Immerzeel, W.W., 2020. "A novel method to quantify consumed fractions and non-consumptive use of irrigation water: Application to the Indus Basin Irrigation System of Pakistan," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 236(C).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Slamini, Maryam & Sbaa, Mohamed & Arabi, Mourad & Darmous, Ahmed, 2022. "Review on Partial Root-zone Drying irrigation: Impact on crop yield, soil and water pollution," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 271(C).
    2. Jia, Dianyong & Dai, Xinglong & Xie, Yuli & He, Mingrong, 2021. "Alternate furrow irrigation improves grain yield and nitrogen use efficiency in winter wheat," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 244(C).
    3. Nicholas Pawsey & Lin Crase, 2013. "The Mystique of Water Pricing and Accounting," Economic Papers, The Economic Society of Australia, vol. 32(3), pages 328-339, September.
    4. Kang, Shaozhong & Hao, Xinmei & Du, Taisheng & Tong, Ling & Su, Xiaoling & Lu, Hongna & Li, Xiaolin & Huo, Zailin & Li, Sien & Ding, Risheng, 2017. "Improving agricultural water productivity to ensure food security in China under changing environment: From research to practice," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 179(C), pages 5-17.
    5. Calzadilla, Alvaro & Rehdanz, Katrin & Tol, Richard S.J., 2008. "Water scarcity and the impact of improved irrigation management: A CGE analysis," Conference papers 331788, Purdue University, Center for Global Trade Analysis, Global Trade Analysis Project.
    6. De Pinto, A., 2018. "The Global Effects of Widespread Adoption of Climate Smart Agriculture," 2018 Conference, July 28-August 2, 2018, Vancouver, British Columbia 277524, International Association of Agricultural Economists.
    7. Webber, H.A. & Madramootoo, C.A. & Bourgault, M. & Horst, M.G. & Stulina, G. & Smith, D.L., 2006. "Water use efficiency of common bean and green gram grown using alternate furrow and deficit irrigation," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 86(3), pages 259-268, December.
    8. Cheng, Minghui & Wang, Haidong & Fan, Junliang & Zhang, Shaohui & Liao, Zhenqi & Zhang, Fucang & Wang, Yanli, 2021. "A global meta-analysis of yield and water use efficiency of crops, vegetables and fruits under full, deficit and alternate partial root-zone irrigation," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 248(C).
    9. Mottaleb, Khondoker A. & Krupnik, Timothy J. & Keil, Alwin & Erenstein, Olaf, 2019. "Understanding clients, providers and the institutional dimensions of irrigation services in developing countries: A study of water markets in Bangladesh," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 222(C), pages 242-253.
    10. Ma, Shou-Chen & Zhang, Wei-Qiang & Duan, Ai-Wang & Wang, Tong-Chao, 2019. "Effects of controlling soil moisture regime based on root-sourced signal characteristics on yield formation and water use efficiency of winter wheat," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 221(C), pages 486-492.
    11. Alvaro Calzadilla & Katrin Rehdanz & Richard S.J. Tol, 2008. "The Eonomic Impact Of More Sustainable Water Use In Agriculture: A Computable General Equilibrium Analysis," Working Papers FNU-169, Research unit Sustainability and Global Change, Hamburg University, revised Dec 2008.
    12. Wu, Youjie & Du, Taisheng & Li, Fusheng & Li, Sien & Ding, Risheng & Tong, Ling, 2016. "Quantification of maize water uptake from different layers and root zones under alternate furrow irrigation using stable oxygen isotope," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 168(C), pages 35-44.
    13. Lekakis, E.H. & Georgiou, P.E. & Pavlatou-Ve, A. & Antonopoulos, V.Z., 2011. "Effects of fixed partial root-zone drying irrigation and soil texture on water and solute dynamics in calcareous soils and corn yield," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 101(1), pages 71-80.
    14. Du, Taisheng & Kang, Shaozhong & Zhang, Jianhua & Li, Fusheng & Hu, Xiaotao, 2006. "Yield and physiological responses of cotton to partial root-zone irrigation in the oasis field of northwest China," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 84(1-2), pages 41-52, July.
    15. Yeti Nisha Madhoo, 2007. "International Trends In Water Utility Regimes," Annals of Public and Cooperative Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 78(1), pages 87-135, March.
    16. Chen, Zongkui & Xia, Jun & Ma, Hui & Wang, Yuanyuan & Gao, Hongyun & Kong, Xianhui & Luo, Honghai, 2018. "Presowing fertigation effects on soil moisture absorption and consumption of cotton in arid regions," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 210(C), pages 130-139.
    17. Ahmadi, Seyed Hamid & Plauborg, Finn & Andersen, Mathias N. & Sepaskhah, Ali Reza & Jensen, Christian R. & Hansen, Søren, 2011. "Effects of irrigation strategies and soils on field grown potatoes: Root distribution," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 98(8), pages 1280-1290, May.
    18. Sepaskhah, A. R. & Kamgar-Haghighi, A. A., 1997. "Water use and yields of sugarbeet grown under every-other-furrow irrigation with different irrigation intervals," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 34(1), pages 71-79, July.
    19. Zare Abyaneh, Hamid & Jovzi, Mehdi & Albaji, Mohammad, 2017. "Effect of regulated deficit irrigation, partial root drying and N-fertilizer levels on sugar beet crop (Beta vulgaris L.)," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 194(C), pages 13-23.
    20. Qian Li & Yan Chen & Shikun Sun & Muyuan Zhu & Jing Xue & Zihan Gao & Jinfeng Zhao & Yihe Tang, 2022. "Research on Crop Irrigation Schedules Under Deficit Irrigation—A Meta-analysis," Water Resources Management: An International Journal, Published for the European Water Resources Association (EWRA), Springer;European Water Resources Association (EWRA), vol. 36(12), pages 4799-4817, September.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:agiwat:v:173:y:2016:i:c:p:55-60. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/agwat .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.