A field experiment was conducted on sandy loam soil at the Indian Agricultural Research Institute, New Delhi during summer season of 2006 to assess the water requirement and yield of groundnut following different methods of planting and irrigation schedules under drip irrigation system. The treatments comprised 3 methods of planting (flat bed, flat bed paired row and raised bed paired row) and 5 irrigation schedules [daily irrigation as per crop ET, alternate irrigation, 30% management allowed deficit (MAD), 40% MAD and 50% MAD]. Results revealed that the paired row planting on raised bed gave significantly higher total biomass (7.48 t ha−1), number of pods (60/plant), seed yield (2.8 t ha−1) as well as shelling out turn (69.2%) compared to normal flat planting and flat bed paired row planting. Similarly, daily irrigation based on crop ET produced significantly higher all the components mentioned above in comparison to irrigation schedule of 40 and 50% MAD but comparable to alternate day irrigation. Amongst the methods of planting, raised bed pair row planting gave the highest water use efficiency (62.44 kg pod/ha-cm of water) and irrigation efficiency (104.07 kg pod/ha-cm of water) than other two methods of planting. Daily irrigation as per crop ET recorded the highest water use efficiency (63.7 kg pod/ha-cm of water) and irrigation efficiency (106.29 kg pod/ha-cm of water) followed by alternate day irrigation (62.0 and 103.33 kg pod/ha-cm of water, respectively).
Drip irrigation, harvest index, management allowed deficit, shelling out turn, semi-arid region, water use efficiency
