Diurnal variation in evapotranspiration and transpiration at different levels of moisture supply in rice

The water loss gradually increased in the morning continuously and reached a peak around 4 p. m. and decreased thereafter. Such march in ET and T loss appears to be due to the combined effect ol evaporative demand and soil temperatures. The water loss ranged 84–96% in daytime and 4–16% in nights. Rasi recorded less water loss in kharif and IR 20 in rabi indicating good varietal differences. E did not differ much with moisture regimes while T differed with varieties and moisture supply. Soil moisture regimes did not influence water loss much, except at extremes in kharif while in tabi the influence was considerably higher.