IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/agiwat/v216y2019icp60-69.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Effect of irrigation management on pasture yield and nitrogen losses

Author

Listed:
  • Vogeler, Iris
  • Thomas, Steve
  • van der Weerden, Tony

Abstract

While the benefits of irrigation for agricultural production are well established, the effects of irrigation management on production and environmental consequences are not well quantified. We used the APSIM (Agricultural Production Systems sIMulator) model to simulate the effect of six different irrigation management scenarios on pasture production and nitrogen (N) losses from both urine patches and non-urine affected areas using New Zealand farming systems as a test case. Nitrogen losses included nitrate (NO3) leaching, and gaseous emissions via ammonia (NH3) volatilisation and denitrification (nitrous oxide (N2O) and dinitrogen (N2) emissions). The effects of different climate and rainfall regimes were simulated for three different soil types – deep, poorly drained (Otokia), deep, well drained (Templeton) and shallow, well drained (Eyre) soils, using 20 years of data from two climate stations with mean annual rainfall amounts of 600 and 800 mm. In the shallow soil with the least plant available water, more frequent irrigation with higher total annual amounts resulted in a significant increase in predicted pasture production compared with less frequent irrigation due to less plant water stress. However, predicted N losses through leaching, denitrification and N2O emissions also increased. In the deep soils pasture growth was not affected by the frequency of irrigation, whereas denitrification increased with higher frequency irrigation, especially in the poorly drained soil, leading to increased N2O emissions. Based on these modelling results, N losses can be reduced with little effect on production by irrigating less frequently and maintaining soil water deficits.

Suggested Citation

  • Vogeler, Iris & Thomas, Steve & van der Weerden, Tony, 2019. "Effect of irrigation management on pasture yield and nitrogen losses," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 216(C), pages 60-69.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:agiwat:v:216:y:2019:i:c:p:60-69
    DOI: 10.1016/j.agwat.2019.01.022
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0378377418302129
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.agwat.2019.01.022?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. van der Weerden, T.J. & Laurenson, S. & Vogeler, I. & Beukes, P.C. & Thomas, S.M. & Rees, R.M. & Topp, C.F.E. & Lanigan, G. & de Klein, C.A.M., 2017. "Mitigating nitrous oxide and manure-derived methane emissions by removing cows in response to wet soil conditions," Agricultural Systems, Elsevier, vol. 156(C), pages 126-138.
    2. Probert, M. E. & Dimes, J. P. & Keating, B. A. & Dalal, R. C. & Strong, W. M., 1998. "APSIM's water and nitrogen modules and simulation of the dynamics of water and nitrogen in fallow systems," Agricultural Systems, Elsevier, vol. 56(1), pages 1-28, January.
    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. Clémence Vannier & Thomas A. Cochrane & Peyman Zawar-Reza & Larry Bellamy, 2022. "Development of a Systems Model for Assessing Pathways to Resilient, Sustainable, and Profitable Agriculture in New Zealand," Land, MDPI, vol. 11(12), pages 1-32, December.
    2. Nicole Meinusch & Susanne Kramer & Oliver Körner & Jürgen Wiese & Ingolf Seick & Anita Beblek & Regine Berges & Bernhard Illenberger & Marco Illenberger & Jennifer Uebbing & Maximilian Wolf & Gunter S, 2021. "Integrated Cycles for Urban Biomass as a Strategy to Promote a CO 2 -Neutral Society—A Feasibility Study," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(17), pages 1-22, August.
    3. Camille Rousset & Timothy J. Clough & Peter R. Grace & David W. Rowlings & Clemens Scheer, 2021. "Irrigation Scheduling with Soil Gas Diffusivity as a Decision Tool to Mitigate N 2 O Emissions from a Urine-Affected Pasture," Agriculture, MDPI, vol. 11(5), pages 1-15, May.
    4. Chen, Peng & Nie, Tangzhe & Chen, Shuaihong & Zhang, Zhongxue & Qi, Zhijuan & Liu, Wanning, 2019. "Recovery efficiency and loss of 15N-labelled urea in a rice-soil system under water saving irrigation in the Songnen Plain of Northeast China," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 222(C), pages 139-153.
    5. Srinivasagan N. Subhashree & C. Igathinathane & Adnan Akyuz & Md. Borhan & John Hendrickson & David Archer & Mark Liebig & David Toledo & Kevin Sedivec & Scott Kronberg & Jonathan Halvorson, 2023. "Tools for Predicting Forage Growth in Rangelands and Economic Analyses—A Systematic Review," Agriculture, MDPI, vol. 13(2), pages 1-30, February.
    6. Srinivasan, M.S. & Measures, Richard & Muller, Carla & Neal, Mark & Rajanayaka, Channa & Shankar, Ude & Elley, Graham, 2021. "Comparing the water use metrics of just-in-case, just-in-time and justified irrigation strategies using a scenario-based tool," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 258(C).
    7. McCarthy, Alison & Foley, Joseph & Raedts, Pieter & Hills, James, 2023. "Field evaluation of automated site-specific irrigation for cotton and perennial ryegrass using soil-water sensors and Model Predictive Control," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 277(C).
    8. Ding, Wuhan & Chang, Naijie & Zhang, Jing & Li, Guichun & Zhang, Jianfeng & Ju, Xuehai & Zhang, Guilong & Li, Hu, 2022. "Optimized fertigation mitigates N2O and NO emissions and enhances NH3 volatilizations in an intensified greenhouse vegetable system," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 272(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. El-Naggar, A.G. & Hedley, C.B. & Horne, D. & Roudier, P. & Clothier, B.E., 2020. "Soil sensing technology improves application of irrigation water," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 228(C).
    2. He, Qinsi & Liu, De Li & Wang, Bin & Li, Linchao & Cowie, Annette & Simmons, Aaron & Zhou, Hongxu & Tian, Qi & Li, Sien & Li, Yi & Liu, Ke & Yan, Haoliang & Harrison, Matthew Tom & Feng, Puyu & Waters, 2022. "Identifying effective agricultural management practices for climate change adaptation and mitigation: A win-win strategy in South-Eastern Australia," Agricultural Systems, Elsevier, vol. 203(C).
    3. Thomas, N., 2021. "Alternative Crop Management Methods to Increase Crop Productivity and Farmer Utility," 2021 Conference, August 17-31, 2021, Virtual 315042, International Association of Agricultural Economists.
    4. Grotelüschen, Kristina & Gaydon, Donald S. & Langensiepen, Matthias & Ziegler, Susanne & Kwesiga, Julius & Senthilkumar, Kalimuthu & Whitbread, Anthony M. & Becker, Mathias, 2021. "Assessing the effects of management and hydro-edaphic conditions on rice in contrasting East African wetlands using experimental and modelling approaches," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 258(C).
    5. Marcos Jiménez Martínez & Christine Fürst, 2021. "Simulating the Capacity of Rainfed Food Crop Species to Meet Social Demands in Sudanian Savanna Agro-Ecologies," Land, MDPI, vol. 10(8), pages 1-28, August.
    6. Yang, Xuan & Zheng, Lina & Yang, Qian & Wang, Zikui & Cui, Song & Shen, Yuying, 2018. "Modelling the effects of conservation tillage on crop water productivity, soil water dynamics and evapotranspiration of a maize-winter wheat-soybean rotation system on the Loess Plateau of China using," Agricultural Systems, Elsevier, vol. 166(C), pages 111-123.
    7. Farquharson, Robert J. & Cacho, Oscar J. & Mullen, John D., 2005. "An economic approach to soil fertility management for wheat production in New South Wales and Queensland," 2005 Conference (49th), February 9-11, 2005, Coff's Harbour, Australia 137866, Australian Agricultural and Resource Economics Society.
    8. van Oort, P.A.J. & Wang, G. & Vos, J. & Meinke, H. & Li, B.G. & Huang, J.K. & van der Werf, W., 2016. "Towards groundwater neutral cropping systems in the Alluvial Fans of the North China Plain," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 165(C), pages 131-140.
    9. Chauhan, Yashvir S., 2010. "Potential productivity and water requirements of maize-peanut rotations in Australian semi-arid tropical environments--A crop simulation study," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 97(3), pages 457-464, March.
    10. Dumbrell, Nikki P. & Kragt, Marit E. & Biggs, Jody & Meier, Elizabeth & Thorburn, Peter, 2015. "Climate change abatement and farm profitability analyses across agricultural environments," Working Papers 225674, University of Western Australia, School of Agricultural and Resource Economics.
    11. Oliver, Yvette M. & Robertson, Michael J. & Weeks, Cameron, 2010. "A new look at an old practice: Benefits from soil water accumulation in long fallows under Mediterranean conditions," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 98(2), pages 291-300, December.
    12. Kodur, S., 2017. "Improving the prediction of soil evaporation for different soil types under dryland cropping," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 193(C), pages 131-141.
    13. Eranga M. Wimalasiri & Ebrahim Jahanshiri & Tengku Adhwa Syaherah Tengku Mohd Suhairi & Hasika Udayangani & Ranjith B. Mapa & Asha S. Karunaratne & Lal P. Vidhanarachchi & Sayed N. Azam-Ali, 2020. "Basic Soil Data Requirements for Process-Based Crop Models as a Basis for Crop Diversification," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(18), pages 1-20, September.
    14. Monjardino, M. & McBeath, T. & Ouzman, J. & Llewellyn, R. & Jones, B., 2015. "Farmer risk-aversion limits closure of yield and profit gaps: A study of nitrogen management in the southern Australian wheatbelt," Agricultural Systems, Elsevier, vol. 137(C), pages 108-118.
    15. Palosuo, Taru & Hoffmann, Munir P. & Rötter, Reimund P. & Lehtonen, Heikki S., 2021. "Sustainable intensification of crop production under alternative future changes in climate and technology: The case of the North Savo region," Agricultural Systems, Elsevier, vol. 190(C).
    16. Andrew L. Fletcher & Chao Chen & Noboru Ota & Roger A. Lawes & Yvette M. Oliver, 2020. "Has historic climate change affected the spatial distribution of water-limited wheat yield across Western Australia?," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 159(3), pages 347-364, April.
    17. Chen, Shichao & Parsons, David & Du, Taisheng & Kumar, Uttam & Wang, Sufen, 2021. "Simulation of yield and water balance using WHCNS and APSIM combined with geostatistics across a heterogeneous field," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 258(C).
    18. Zhang, Yuxi & Walker, Jeffrey P. & Pauwels, Valentijn R.N., 2022. "Assimilation of wheat and soil states for improved yield prediction: The APSIM-EnKF framework," Agricultural Systems, Elsevier, vol. 201(C).
    19. Masikati, P. & Manschadi, A. & van Rooyen, A. & Hargreaves, J., 2014. "Maize–mucuna rotation: An alternative technology to improve water productivity in smallholder farming systems," Agricultural Systems, Elsevier, vol. 123(C), pages 62-70.
    20. van der Weerden, T.J. & Laurenson, S. & Vogeler, I. & Beukes, P.C. & Thomas, S.M. & Rees, R.M. & Topp, C.F.E. & Lanigan, G. & de Klein, C.A.M., 2017. "Mitigating nitrous oxide and manure-derived methane emissions by removing cows in response to wet soil conditions," Agricultural Systems, Elsevier, vol. 156(C), pages 126-138.

    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:216:y:2019:i:c:p:60-69. 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.