Comparison of Crop Water Requirements of Maize Varieties under Irrigated Condition in Semi-Arid Environment

Abstract

A field study was conducted to find the crop water requirements of four maize varieties under irrigated condition on clay loam soil at the research farm of The University of Agriculture Peshawar, Pakistan during July–October, 2012. Objective of the study was to compare the crop water requirements of maize using two traditional varieties i.e. Azam (V1) and Jalal (V2) and two hybrid 3025W (V3) and 30K08(V4)) replicated four times in a randomized complete block design. Soil moisture was determined by gravimetric method, actual evapotranspiration (ETa) was worked out by field water balance taking into account soil moisture, rainfall, and irrigation water applied. ETa of traditional maize variety V₁ was found lower and higher for hybrid maize variety V₄. Seasonal ETa of selected maize varieties V2, V₃ and V₄were 3, 24 and 34 % higher as compared to V₁. ETa of V₁ varied between 2.7 to 4.8 mm d^-1, for V₂ between 2.6 to 5.2 mm d^-1, for V₃ between 3.3 to 6.2 mm d^-1 and for V₄ between 3.4 to 6.5 mm d^-1. The seasonal ETa of selected varieties V₁, V₂, V₃ and V₄ was found 411, 422, 512 and 550 mm, respectively. Results showed that ETa of hybrid varieties was higher as compared to traditional varieties. ETa was found statistically significant (P ? 0.05) for the selected maize varieties.

Keywords: Actual evapotranspiration, crop water requirement.