Evaluation of cropsyst model for yield and water productivity of chickpea

An experiment entitled “Evaluation of CropSyst model for yield and water productivity of chickpea” was conducted on farmers field during rabi 2012–13 at village Mainawali in Hanumangarh district of Rajasthan. The soils of the area are alluvial and calcareous in nature formed under arid and semi arid climate. The soils of site are brown to grayish brown and dark gray in colour, besides being calcareous and slightly alkaline in reaction having 67.7, 11.1 and 21.0% of sand, clay and silt, respectively in 0–15 cm soil depth with pH 8.09 and low soil organic matter content. The simulated and observed green area index differs with field measurements at all stages. The simulate yield of chickpea were closer to the observed yield. The total water applied in chickpea was 415 mm out of this 356.5 mm consumed in ET. Thus, ET constituted 86% of total water applied and deep drainage constituted 12% and rest 2% stored as residual soil moisture.