Influence of Protective Sprinkler Irrigation on Yield and Water Productivity of Kharif Grown Rain Fed Crops

The food grain and non-food grain crops occupy 48 and 68% area respectively under rain fed condition. Due to uneven rainfall, the rainfed crop suffers for want of adequate soil moisture at critical growth stages. Under such situation, protective irrigation ensures adequate soil moisture which results higher production. Crops like tomato, maize, groundnut and red gram are predominantly grown during kharif as rain fed crops. Relieving the soil moisture stress during the critical crop growth stages with more efficient irrigation system assumes importance in rain fed farming.

An experiment was conducted for three years during kharif 2008, 2009 and 2010 at the College Farm, Prof. Jayashankar Telangana State Agril. University, Rajendranagar, Hyderabad on a sandy loam soil to study the yield advantage of protective sprinkler irrigation to kharif grown rain fed tomato, maize, groundnut and red gram crops. The trial was conducted in strip plot design with protective sprinkler irrigations as main plots and rainfed kharif crops as sub-plots and replicated thrice. The three main treatments comprised of - one protective sprinkler irrigation at flower/peg/tassel initiation, two protective sprinkler irrigations at flower and fruiting, tassel and grain filling, peg formation and pod filling and flowering and pod filling stages and rain fed (control). The sub treatments consisted of four crops- tomato, maize, groundnut and red gram.

There was an increase in yield with one and two protective sprinkler irrigations by 16.7 and 27.9; 17.7 and 44 5; 26.4 and 34.5 and 21.1 and 28.9% over their corresponding rain fed crops of tomato, groundnut, maize and red gram, respectively. There was an increase of 20.4 and 31.6% in Maize Equivalent Yield (MEY) with one and two protective irrigations as compared to rain fed crop. The water productivity was lower in all the crops grown under rain fed conditions (0.77 kg MEY m^-3) as compared to that of one and two protective irrigations.