dc.description.abstract |
Irrigation is critical to Ethiopia's national economy in terms of increasing income and achieving
food security. Rice production is important for global food security but given its large water
footprint, efficient irrigation management strategies need to be developed. Ethiopia has 39.35 m
ha of rice potential area, under this 3.7 million ha is irrigable. Regardless of the potential, the
country was importing a huge amount of rice to fill the increasing demand and irrigated rice
production was not practiced in the potenitial area. Proper irrigation scheduling is the most
important irrigation management strategy. Knowing crop water requirements is an important
practical concern in irrigated agriculture to increase water use efficiency. The goal of this study
is to determine how upland rice responds to various irrigation levels and to determine the
appropriate water productivity under optimal irrigation scheduling in the Fogera plain. Thirty-one-year climate data of the study area was used to compute the reference crop
evapotranspiration and effective rainfall using CROPWAT-8.0 decision support software. The
crop evapotranspiration was determined from reference crop evapotranspiration and rice crop
factors. Soil samples were collected from the field and the soil physical and chemical properties
were analyzed in the laboratory. Soil physical properties were used to determine the total
available water. This study was conducted by five experimental treatments as; 20%
recommended manageable allowable depletion level (MAD) of rice as a control (100% of
recommende MAD), 60%, 80%, 120%, and 140% of the recommende manageable allowable
depletion level. Among the treatments, short irrigation intervals (4 day) and high irrigation
amounts (650.5 mm) were found at 60% of recommende manageable allowable depletion levels.
Stressing the rice by 60% and 80% of recommende manageable allowable depletion level
showed that minimum maturity period as compared to the remaining treatments. The optimum
depletion level based on the highest yield (7164 kg/ha), highest water productivity (1.85 kg/m
3
),
and higher economic water productivity (45.38 ETB/m
3
/ha) was obtained at 80% of recommende
manageable allowable depletion level. Therefore, the optimum irrigation schedule was decided at
the 80% of recommende manageable allowable depletion level for Fogera plain. For further
investigation of irrigated rice, fertilizer rate with spacing for irrigation and this study in a
different location should be studied.
Keywords: Irrigation Scheduling, Manageable allowable depletion level, Upland Rice,
NERICA-4, Water Productivity |
en_US |