Impact of Irrigation Regimes on Growth, Yield and Water Use

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and furrow irrigation methods were used and their effects on growth and yields of the sweet pepper were observed using split plot design. The irrigation ...
ISSN (Print) : 0974-6846 ISSN (Online) : 0974-5645

Indian Journal of Science and Technology, Vol 7(6), 790–794, June 2014

Impact of Irrigation Regimes on Growth, Yield and Water Use Efficiency of Sweet Pepper A. S. Lodhi*, A. Kaushal and K. G. Singh Soil and Water Engineering Department, Punjab Agricultural University, Ludhiana, India; [email protected]

Abstract Field experiment was conducted in the Department of Soil and Water Engineering, PAU, Ludhiana. In the experiments, drip and furrow irrigation methods were used and their effects on growth and yields of the sweet pepper were observed using split plot design. The irrigation treatments were, drip irrigation with IW/CPE ratio of 0.60(I1), drip irrigation with IW/ CPE ratio of 0.75(I2), drip irrigation with IW/CPE ratio of 0.90(I3), furrow irrigation with paired row planting (I4) and furrow irrigation with single row planting (I5). The dry matter accumulation, number of fruit per plant, fruit size, total yield and water use efficiency were observed highest in I2 treatments. The highest plant height and leaf area index were observed in I3 treatment. The minimum number of days to flowering, fruit initiation and fruit maturity were observed I1 treatments. There were significant effects of irrigation on leaf area index, plant height, dry matter accumulation, number of days to flowering, fruit initiation, fruit maturity, fruit girth, number of fruit per plant, fruit length, yield and WUE. Best drip irrigated treatment I2 gave an increase of 30.67% over I4 and an increase of 33.74% over I5. The percentage of water saving for drip irrigation treatment I1, I2 and I3 were 51.01%, 39.72% and 28.73% respectively over the furrow irrigation treatment. Irrigation treatment I2 gives maximum yield and highest WUE.

Keywords: Drip Irrigation, Growth, Irrigation, Sweet pepper, Water Use Efficiency, Yield

1. Introduction

2.  Materials and Methods

Capsicum (Capsicum annuum L. var. grossum) or sweet pepper also called bell pepper is one of the most popular and high value vegetable crops grown for its immature fruits throughout the world1. Sweet pepper is more sensitive to environment (especially soil moisture and temperature); Soil moisture is one of the predominant factors influencing sweet pepper productivity2 and drip irrigation is the best alternative. Hanson et al.3 indicated that the consumed water in the drip method is 40% less than that of the furrow method. Ngouajio et al.4 showed that drip irrigation reduced water consumption by 20% compared to the furrow irrigation. Keeping above in view, the present study has been planned with the objective to determine the impact of irrigation regimes on growth, yield and WUE of sweet pepper.

A Field experiment was conducted at the Research Farm of the Department of Soil and Water Engineering, PAU, Ludhiana, India. Ludhiana is situated at latitude of 30o 54`N and longitude of 75o 48`E and at a mean height of 247 meters above sea level. This place is characterized by very hot and dry summer (April to June) followed by a hot and humid monsoon period and cold winters during December to January. The average rainfall of the area is 600 mm most of which is received during the monsoon season. Average minimum and maximum temperature in the region varies from 3oC in winter to 43oC in summer season respectively. Mechanical properties of experimental field were determined by standard methods and as reported by the Department of Soils, PAU Ludhiana, are given in Table 1.

*Author for correspondence

A. S. Lodhi*, A. Kaushal and K. G. Singh

The initial levels of nitrogen (N), phosphorous (P), potassium (K), organic carbon, pH and electrical conductivity of the soil were determined by standard methods and as reported by the Department of Soils, PAU, Ludhiana are given in Table 2. Water samples were analyzed for carbonates, bicarbonate, chloride, Ca-Mg, residual sodium carbonate and Electrical Conductivity (EC) etc. by titration method to check if the water being used is fit for irrigation purpose5. It was found that all the parameters of irrigation water were within the safe limit as presented in Table 3. The experimental area was tilled twice with a disc harrow followed by a cultivator and planking. The soil at the experiment field was sandy loam having pH of 8.9. The soil was low in organic carbon and available nitrogen, medium in phosphorous and high in potash. As per the recommendation of Punjab Agricultural University, Ludhiana in its “Package of Practices for Vegetable Crops”6 the farm yard manure at the rate of 55t/ha was added to the field, one month before the field preparation so that it could thoroughly mix in the soil and get decomposed by the time of sowing of crop. Nursery raising of sweet pepper of “Bharath” variety was done in polyhouse in October, 2008 and transplanting

was done in November, 2008. In paired sowing, 60 cm wide beds were raised, row to row space between paired rows was 45 cm and row space between pairs was 75 cm but plant to plant space was kept as 30 cm. Irrigation was applied as per the treatments. In the single furrow, the row to row spacing was 60 cm and plant to plant spacing was 30 cm. A field plot measuring approximately 550.8 m2 (54m×10.2m) was prepared and the experiment was laid out in split plot design keeping five irrigation treatments in main plots and three different heights of low tunnel in sub plots and replicated three times. The three different low tunnel height treatments were 45cm, 60cm and 75cm. Thus, of the five treatments, three were drip irrigated and two were furrow irrigated. After the installation of drip irrigation system, it was tested for design discharge, uniformity of emitters and for clogging problem. At a pressure of 1kg/cm2 the average discharge per emitter was measured and the Christiansen uniformity coefficient was worked for analyzing the uniformity of emitter discharge, which was calculated as 98.4%. The Christiansen uniformity coefficient was calculated as:

Table 1.  Soil characteristics of the experimental area

where, Euc = Christiansen uniformity coefficient -= Mean absolute deviation of the emitter flow Δq from the mean value (l/min) q = Average discharge (l/min)

Soil depth (cm)

% of Sand

 ∆q  Euc =  1 −  q  

Texture

Silt

Clay

0-15

70.75

18.46

10.79

Sandy loam

15-30

70.17

18.08

11.75

Sandy loam

In drip irrigation treatment water was applied for three different irrigation levels IW/CPE ratio of 0.60, 0.75 and 0.90. Drip irrigation was applied after 10mm cumulative pan evaporation. Total volume of water applied per plant was calculated as given below: Ac × CPED × (IW CPE ) × Aw (2) Vd = Euc

Table 2.  Initial fertility status of soil Soil depth (cm)

(Kg/ha) N

P

K

0-15

Low

30.5

480

15-30

Low

31.75 322.5

Organic C (%)

pH EC(millimho/cm)

0.27

8.9

0.21

0.12

8.8

0.16

(1)

where Vd = Volume of water applied per plant in drip irrigation system (litre) Table 3.  Irrigation water quality parameters Carbonate Bicarbonate Chloride CalciumResidual (meq/l) (meq/l) (meq/l) Magnesium Sodium (meq/l) Carbonate (meq/l)

EC (micro -mhos/cm)

Nil

914

Vol 7 (6) | June 2014 | www.indjst.org

7.4

1.4

7.0

0.4

Indian Journal of Science and Technology

791

Impact of Irrigation Regimes on Growth, Yield and Water Use Efficiency of Sweet Pepper

Ac = Cropped area (m2) which is calculated by row to row spacing (m) × plant to plant spacing (m) CPED =  The desired cumulative pan evaporation (mm) after which the drip irrigation was applied IW/CPE = Ratio of irrigation water to cumulative pan evaporation Aw = Fractional wetted area which was taken as 75% (0.75) Euc = Christiansen uniformity coefficient. The time of irrigation for operating drip system per application was calculated as given below: T (drip) =

Np × Vd Ne × qe

(3)

where T(drip) = Drip irrigation time (hrs.) Np = Number of plants served by one lateral Vd = Volume of water applied per plant in drip irrigation system (litre) Ne = Number of emitter in one lateral qe= Average emitter discharge (litre/hr.) In furrow irrigation treatment, water was applied using siphon tubes having discharge of one litre/sec for both furrow irrigation with paired and single row planting. Irrigation water was applied after 30mm cumulative pan evaporation for both furrow irrigated treatments. The furrow irrigation time was calculated as given below: T ( furrow ) =

d ×w ×l q × 360

The irrigation time was calculated by equations 3 and 4 for drip and furrow irrigation respectively and presented in Table 4.

2.1 Observation Five plants were tagged randomly in each sub-plot to measure their height, Leaf Area Index (LAI), Dry Matter Accumulation (DMA), days to flowering, days to fruit initiation and days to fruit maturity. Cumulative number of

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S.No

Irrigation Water applied treatment after CPE (mm)

Time of water application to different treatments

1.

I1

10.0

49 min. 23 sec.

2.

I2

10.0

1 hr. 2 min.

3.

I3

10.0

1 hr. 14 min.

4.

I4

30.0

3 min. 4 sec.

5.

I5

30.0

6 min. 7 sec.

fruits harvested from each sub-plot was worked out by counting the fruits in various picking stage till the end of crop season. Five fruits were selected from each subplot and measurement of length and girth of five fruits were recorded at the maximum point and average fruit length and girth in centimeter was calculated. The fruits from each sub-plot were picked at green mature stage and weighed at each picking. The weight of all the pickings were added and yield per plant was worked out and subsequently the yield per hectare was calculated.

2.2  Statistical Analysis The data collected from the present field experiments were analyzed using ANOVA. For the split plot design, irrigation treatments were considered as main plot and different low tunnel heights as sub-plot. The significance of differences was tested at 5 per cent level.

(4)

where T(furrow) = Furrow irrigation time (hrs.) d = Depth of water to be applied (cm) w = Furrow spacing (m) l = Furrow length (m) q = Discharge from siphon tube (litre/sec)

792

Table 4.  Irrigation time for different irrigation treatments

3.  Result and Discussion The results obtained for plant height, LAI, DMA, days to flowering, fruit initiation and fruit maturity, number of fruit per plant, fruit length, fruit girth and sweet pepper yield presented in Table 5.

3.1  Growth Parameters Among all the irrigation treatments, drip irrigation with I3 ratio gave the highest plant height and LAI throughout the season followed by I2, I1, I4 and I5; this may be due to better moisture distribution in drip irrigation than the conventional irrigation7. While drip irrigation with 0.75 IW/CPE ratio gave the highest DMA throughout the season followed by drip irrigation 0.90 IW/CPE ratio, drip irrigation 0.60 IW/CPE ratio, furrow irrigation paired row planting and furrow irrigation single row planting.

Indian Journal of Science and Technology

A. S. Lodhi*, A. Kaushal and K. G. Singh

3.2 Phenology

Table 5.  Effect of irrigation regimes on growth and yield of sweet pepper

Among all the irrigation treatments drip irrigation with I1 gave the minimum number of days to flowering, fruiting and fruit maturity followed by I2, I3, I4 and I5. This may be due to deficient irrigation water in I1 treatment. The results are in line with that of Khan et al.8 who reported that the plants under any kind of stressed conditions tends to shortened their life span and try to complete their life cycle in hasten which causes the lowest days to flowering, fruiting.

Growth Parameters Treatments

Plant Height (cm)

Leaf Area Index

Dry matter accumulation (gm)

I1

56.93

4.12

90.55

I2

58.83

4.17

94.50

I3

60.78

4.26

92.55

I4

56.26

4.05

88.60

I5

55.08

3.98

87.73

CD (5%)

1.33

0.15

0.63

3.3  Yield and Yield Attributes Among all the irrigation treatments I2 treatment gave the highest number of fruit per plant fruit length and girth, mean sweet pepper yield followed by I3, I1, I4 and I5. Moisture in optimum level enhances the cell metabolism resulting in an increase in released energy which induces growth9. Best drip irrigated treatment (i.e. drip irrigation, IW/CPE= 0.75) gave an increase of 30.67% over the furrow irrigated paired row planting and an increase of 33.74% over furrow irrigated single row planting.

Phenology Treatments

Days to flowering

Days to fruit initiation

Days to fruit maturity

I1

82.60

89.15

114.37

I2

87.35

94.46

119.20

I3

93.42

100.28

124.20

I4

95.20

101.60

124.57

I5

95.97

102.88

125.37

CD (5%)

1.50

1.92

2.19

3.4 Irrigation Water Saving under Drip Irrigation

Yield and Yield Attributes Treatments

Number of fruit per plant

Average fruit size Fruit length (cm)

Fruit girth (cm)

Sweet pepper yield (q/ ha)

I1

9.56

5.78

18.17

222.46

I2

10.07

6.38

20.41

288.11

I3

9.70

5.83

18.98

276.95

I4

9.48

5.65

17.99

220.48

I5

9.38

5.53

17.88

215.42

CD (5%)

0.12

0.14

0.39

5.00

Quantity of water applied under different irrigation treatments is presented in Table 6. The highest amount of irrigation water 78cm was applied in furrow irrigation and lowest water was applied in drip irrigation IW/CPE= 0.60 (i.e. I1). The percentage saving was 39.72% for irrigation treatment I2 (drip irrigation, IW/CPE=0.75) over the conventional furrow irrigated treatments. All the drip irrigated treatments saved considerable amount of water over furrow irrigation as the drip irrigation is known for water saving10.

Table 6.  Comparison of irrigation water use in different irrigation treatments Irrigation treatment

Pre irrigation depth (cm)

Depth of water applied per irrigation (cm)

Total number of irrigations

Total depth of irrigation water applied (cm)

Percentage saving over furrow irrigation

3

0.45

77

38.21

51.01%

I2

3

0.57

77

47.01

39.72%

I3

3

0.68

77

55.82

28.435%

I4 and I5

3

3.00

25

78.00

I1

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Indian Journal of Science and Technology

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Impact of Irrigation Regimes on Growth, Yield and Water Use Efficiency of Sweet Pepper

Table 7.  Comparison of WUE (q/ha/cm) with different irrigation regimes

5. References

Treatments

  1. Lodhi AS, Kaushal A, Singh KG. Effect of irrigation regimes and low tunnel heights on microclimatic parameters in the growing of sweet peppers. International Journal of Engineering Science Invention. 2013; 2(7):20–29.  2. Kaushal A, Lodhi AS, Singh KG. Economics of growing sweet pepper under low tunnels. Progressive Agriculture. 2011; 11(1):67–72.   3. Hanson BR, Schwankl LJ, Schulbach KF, Pettygrove GS. A comparison of furrow, surface drip, and subsurface drip irrigation on lettuce yield and applied water. Agricultural Water Management.1997; 33:139–57.   4. Ngouajio M, Wang G, Goldy R. Withholding of drip irrigation between transplanting and flowering increases the yield of field-grown tomato under plastic mulch. Agricultural Water Management, 2007; 87:285–91.  5. Das DK. Introductory Soil Science.Delhi, India: Kalyani Publishers; 2002.  6.  Anonymous. Package of Practices for Vegetable Crops. Punjab Agricultural University, Ludhiana; 2008.   7. Hsiao TC. Growth and productivity of crops in relation to water status. Acta Horticulturae. 1993; 335:137–48.   8. Khan MH, Chattha TH, Saleem N. Influence of different irrigation intervals on growth and yield of bell pepper (Capsicum annuum grossum group). Res J Agr Biol Sci. 2005; 1:125–28.   9. Pandey V, Ahmed Z, Tewari HC, Kumar N. Effect of greenhouse models on plant-growth and yield of capsicum in Northwest Himalayas. Indian Journal of Horticulture. 2005; 62:312–13. 10. Mane MS, Ayare BL, Magar SS. Principles of drip irrigation system. New Delhi, India: Jain Brothers Publication; 2006. 11. Antony E, Singandhupe RB. Impact of drip and surface irrigation on growth, yield and WUE of capsicum (Capsicum annuum L.). Agr Water Manag. 2004; 65:121–32.

WUE (q/ha/cm)

I1

I2

I3

I4

5.82 6.12 4.96 2.82

I5

CD (5%)

2.76

0.09

3.5  Water Use Efficiency WUE was calculated by dividing yield with water used and the results are given in Table 7. The data given in the table clearly revealed that water use efficiency in I2 gave the highest followed by I3, I1, I4 and I5. Among the treatments with good yield and less irrigation water used gave higher water use efficiency due to optimum moisture present in the soil. The results are in line with that of Antony and Singandhupe11.

4. Conclusions The highest plant height and leaf area index were observed in I3 treatments while the highest DMA, highest number of fruit per plant, maximum fruit length, fruit girth and highest sweet pepper yield were observed in I2 treatments. The lowest number of days to flowering, fruit initiation and fruit maturity was observed in I1 treatment. Drip irrigated treatments gave better yield than furrow irrigation. Best drip irrigated treatment (i.e. I2) gave an increase of 30.67% over I4 treatment and an increase of 33.74% over I5 treatment. The percentage of water saving for drip irrigation treatments I1, I2 and I3 were 51.01%, 39.72% and 28.73% respectively over the furrow irrigation treatment. The WUE was highest I2 treatment among the all irrigation treatments.

794

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Indian Journal of Science and Technology