Squeezing More Crop Out of Each Drop of Water By Don Comis
October 8, 2009 Studies in China and Colorado by Agricultural
Research Service (ARS) scientists and cooperators have revealed
some interesting tactics on how to irrigate with limited water,
based on a crops critical growth stages. Ahuja, research leader
at the Agricultural Systems Research Unit in Fort Collins,
Colo., and colleagues conducted the studies. As one example,
with wheat in China, they found it best to use 80 percent of the
water for wheats two critical growth stages. In Colorado, it was
best to use 80 percent of the water for corns critical flowering
and grain Other tactics for putting limited water to best use
are to irrigate only part of a field, skip the pre-plant
irrigation for corn, delay irrigating until up to half of the
soil water is depleted, and wet soil to no more than 70 percent
of field capacity. Ahuja and his colleagues came up with the
findings in China by combining the ARS Root Zone Water Quality
Model with the Decision Sup