Journal of Water Management

Field experiments were conducted at Agricultural College and Research Institute, Tamil Nadu Agricultural University, Coimbatore, from July 2006 to August 2007 to study the effect of varying irrigation regimes and fertilizer levels in maize-based cropping system. The experiment was laid out in split plot design with three replications. The experiment consisted of 3 irrigation regimes in main plots viz., I₁ - Drip irrigation at 75% WRc (computed water requirement of crop), I₂ - Drip irrigation at 100% WRc, I₃ - Drip irrigation at 125% WRc and 4 fertilizer levels in sub plots viz., F₁ - 75% RDF, F₂ - 100% RDF, F₃ - 125% RDF and F₄ - Drip irrigation + 100% RDF by soil application. Considering the cropping system as a whole, drip irrigation given at 100 and 75 per cent WRc with 125 per cent RDF through drip increased the yield to the tune of 60.5 and 59.7 per cent when compared to farmer's method of surface irrigation. Due to drip irrigation at 100 per cent WRc the water saving was observed to be 30 per cent, and from 75 per cent WRc, we could save 45 per cent water and were able to cultivate an additional area of 82 per cent compared to surface irrigation method. Hence, it is concluded that drip fertigation once in three days at 75 per cent WRc with 100 per cent RDF would be an ideal practice to achieve higher yield and water saving benefits as compared to surface irrigation in maize – sunflower – beetroot cropping system.