Maize productivity in southern New South Wales under furrow and pressurised irrigation
C. J. O’Neill A B C E , E. Humphreys A D , J. Louis B and A. Katupitiya BA CSIRO Land and Water, PMB3, Griffith, NSW 2680, Australia.
B Charles Sturt University, Locked Bag 588, Wagga Wagga, NSW 2678, Australia.
C CRC for Irrigation Futures, PO Box 56, Darling Heights, Qld 4350, Australia.
D Present address: Challenge Program on Water and Food, c/- International Rice Research Institute, DAPO 7777, Metro Manila, Philippines.
E Corresponding author. Email: chris.oneill@csiro.au
Australian Journal of Experimental Agriculture 48(3) 285-295 https://doi.org/10.1071/EA06093
Submitted: 14 March 2006 Accepted: 5 July 2007 Published: 4 February 2008
Abstract
Irrigation farmers in the Murray–Darling Basin of Australia are under considerable pressure to reduce the amount of water they use for irrigation, while sustaining production and profitability. Changing from surface to pressurised irrigation systems may provide some or all of these outcomes; however, little is known about the performance of alternative irrigation methods for broadacre annual crops in this region. Therefore, a demonstration site for comparing furrow, subsurface drip and sprinkler irrigation was established on a representative clay soil in the Coleambally Irrigation Area, NSW. The performance of maize (Zea mays L.) under the three irrigation systems was compared during the 2004–05 season. Subsurface drip irrigated maize out-performed sprinkler and furrow irrigated maize in terms of grain yield (drip 11.8 t/ha, sprinkler 10.5 t/ha, furrow 10.1 t/ha at 14% moisture), net irrigation water application (drip 5.1 ML/ha, sprinkler 6.2 ML/ha, furrow 5.3 ML/ha), net irrigation water productivity (drip 2.3 t/ML, sprinkler 1.7 t/ML, furrow 1.9 t/ML) and total water productivity (drip 1.7 t/ML, sprinkler 1.4 t/ML, furrow 1.3 t/ML). Thus, subsurface drip irrigation saved ~30% of the total amount of water (irrigation, rain, soil water) needed to produce the same quantity of grain using furrow irrigation, while sprinkler irrigation saved ~8% of the water used. The higher net irrigation with sprinkler irrigation was largely due to the lower soil water content in the sprinkler block at the time of sowing. An EM31 survey indicated considerable spatial soil variability within each irrigation block, and all irrigation systems had spatially variable water distribution. Yield variability was very high within all irrigation systems, and appeared to be more strongly associated with irrigation variability than soil variability. All irrigation blocks had large patches of early senescence and poor cob fill, which appeared to be due to nitrogen and/or water deficit stress. We expect that crop performance under all irrigation systems can be improved by improving irrigation, soil and N management.
Additional keywords: centre pivot, corn, distribution uniformity, irrigation scheduling, lateral move, water use efficiency.
Acknowledgements
The experimental site was developed with major input from Murrumbidgee Shire and local community members, CICL, National Heritage Trust, Country Energy and their staff, CSIRO and Paterson Pumps. We thank Brad Fawcett (CSIRO) for his dedicated management of the site, and Warren Muirhead for his significant input into the project at all phases. We are grateful for input from the project steering committee – farmers (Keith Burge, Ian Sutherland, Greg Briggs, Fred Wiltshire), Kieran O’Keeffe and Geoff Beecher (NSW DPI), John Ronan (Elders), Warren Muirhead, Arun Tiwari and Kevin Kelly (CICL) and Bruce Dalgleish (Dalcrom). Pioneer Seed donated the maize seed and seed dressings, and Incitec-Pivot donated the soil tests. Many farmers donated their time and machinery. We are especially grateful to Keith Burge, Mike and Ben Witham, Wayne Lander and Paul Toscan. We are also grateful to Geoff Beecher and Brian Dunn of NSW DPI for their assistance and advice, to Eric Hutchinson (CICL) for maintenance of the flow meters, and David Smith and Roy Zandona (CSIRO) for management of the weather station.
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