Hostname: page-component-77c89778f8-5wvtr Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-24T17:36:19.888Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Temporal dynamics of alfalfa water use efficiency under hyper arid conditions of Saudi Arabia

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 June 2017

K. A. Al-Gaadi ,
R. Madugundu  and
E. Tola
K. A. Al-Gaadi
Affiliation:
Department of Agricultural Engineering, College of Food and Agriculture Sciences, King Saud University, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia Precision Agriculture Research Chair (PARC), King Saud University, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
R. Madugundu
Affiliation:
Precision Agriculture Research Chair (PARC), King Saud University, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
E. Tola*
Affiliation:
Precision Agriculture Research Chair (PARC), King Saud University, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
*
†E-mail: etola@ksu.edu.sa
Get access

Abstract

A field study was carried out to investigate the seasonal variations in alfalfa (Medicago sativa L.) water use efficiency (WUE) using Eddy Covariance (EC) measured CO2 and H2O fluxes, aiming at optimizing the use of irrigation water under hyper arid conditions. The EC system used for this study was installed on a center pivot-irrigated 50 ha alfalfa field. Results revealed that the net EC estimated CO2 uptake ranged from 65,00 kg ha−1 (in winter) to 21,500 kg ha−1 (in summer). While, H2O flux was 4,147 m3 ha−1 (in winter) and 20,157 m3 ha−1 (in summer). This resulted in an estimated alfalfa WUE of 1.57 and 1.07 kg m−3 for winter and summer seasons, respectively. However, the actual WUE of harvested alfalfa was calculated at 0.70 and 0.71 kg m−3 for winter and summer, respectively. Therefore, attaining an actual crop WUE of 33–55% lower than the EC measurement (i.e. more water losses were due to leaching and deep-percolation processes, as the EC system could only estimate evapotranspiration over agricultural fields) emphasizes the need of precision irrigation practices, which will enable farmers to apply irrigation water and agrochemicals more precisely and site-specifically to match soil and plant status and needs.

Keywords

Center pivot irrigationEddy Covarianceenergy fluxeshyper-arid regionwater use efficiency
Type
Precision Irrigation
Information
Advances in Animal Biosciences , Volume 8 , Special Issue 2: Papers presented at the 11th European Conference on Precision Agriculture (ECPA 2017), John McIntyre Centre, Edinburgh, UK, July 16–20 2017 , July 2017 , pp. 540 - 545
Copyright
© The Animal Consortium 2017 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Al-Ghobari, HM, Mohammad, FS and El Marazky, SA 2013. Effect of intelligent irrigation on water use efficiency of wheat crop in arid region. The journal of animal and plant sciences 23 (6), 1691–1699.Google Scholar
Allen, RG, Pereira, LS, Raes, D and Smith, M 1998. Crop evapotranspiration – Guidelines for computing crop water requirements – FAO Irrigation and drainage paper 56, ISBN: 92-5-104219-5.Google Scholar
Bellague, D, Hammedi-Bouzina, MM and Abdelguerfi, 2016. Measuring the performance of perennial alfalfa with drought tolerance indices. Chilean Journal of Agricultural Research 76 (3), 273–284.Google Scholar
Bezerra, BG, Bezerra, JRC, Silva, BB and Santos, CAC 2015. Surface energy exchange and evapotranspiration from cotton crop under full irrigation conditions in the Rio Grande do Norte State, Brazilian Semi-Arid. Bragantia 74, 120–128.Google Scholar
Burba, GG and Anderson, SJ 2007. Introduction to the eddy covariance method: general guidelines and conventional workflow. Li-COR Biosciences, Lincoln, NE, USA. 8/10 984-11301.Google Scholar
Duan, Q, He, B, Qin, X, Zi, S, Zhang, T, Yang, X and Liu, Y 2016. Comparison of net ecosystem productivity of farmland and water use efficiency among different industrial biogas crops. Transactions of the Chinese Society of Agricultural Engineering 32 (1), 265–271.Google Scholar
Gilmanov, TG, Baker, JM, Bernacchi, CJ et al. 2014. Productivity and Carbon Dioxide Exchange of Leguminous Crops: Estimates from Flux Tower Measurements. Agronomy Journal 106 (2), 545–559.Google Scholar
Gilmanov, TG, Soussana, JF, Aires, L et al. 2007. Partitioning European grassland net ecosystem CO2 exchange into gross primary productivity and ecosystem respiration using light response function analysis. Agriculture, Ecosystems and Environment 121 (1–2), 93–120.Google Scholar
Ismail, SM and Al-Marshadi, MH 2013. Maximizing productivity and water use efficiency of alfalfa under Precise subsurface drip irrigation in arid regions. Irrigation and Drainage 62, 57–66.Google Scholar
Ji, XB, Zaho, WZ, Kang, ES, Zhang, ZH and Jin, BW 2011. Carbon dioxide, water vapor, and heat fluxes over agricultural crop field in an arid oasis of Northwest China, as determined by eddy covariance. Envoronmental Earth Sciences 64 (3), 619–629.Google Scholar
Moffat, AM, Papale, D, Reichstein, M et al. 2007. Comprehensive comparison of gap-filling techniques for eddy covariance net carbon fluxes. Agricultural and Forest Meteorology 147, 209–232.Google Scholar
Montazar, A and Sadeghi, M 2008. Effects of applied water and sprinkler irrigation uniformity on alfalfa growth and hay yield. Agric. Water Manage 95, 1279–1287.Google Scholar
Patil, VC, Al-Gaadi, KA, Madugundu, R et al. 2015. Assessing Agricultural Water Productivity in Desert Farming System of Saudi Arabia. IEEE Journal of Selected Topics in Applied Earth Observations and Remote Sensing 8, 284–297.Google Scholar
Pereira, LS, Oweis, T and Zairi, A 2002. Irrigation management under water scarcity. Agric Water Manage 57, 175–206.Google Scholar
Qui, GY, Wang, L, He, X, Zhang, X, Chen, S, Chen, J and Yang, Y 2008. Water use efficiency and Evapotranspiration of wheat and its response to irrigation regime in the Nort China Plin. Agric. And Forst Meteo 148, 1848–1859.Google Scholar
Tang, X, Ding, Z, Li, H, Li, X, Luo, J, Xie, J and Chen, D 2015. Characterizing ecosystem water-use efficiency of croplands eddy covariance measurements and MODIS products. Ecological Engineering 85, 212–217.Google Scholar