Mehdi Zangiabadi; manoochehr gorji; Mehdi Shorafa; Saeed Khavari Khorasani; Saeed Saadat
Abstract
Introduction: Soil is the main source of water retention and availability for plant uptake. The supplement of water is completely dependent on soil physical properties. The soils with higher values of available water are generally more productive because they can supply adequate moisture to plants during ...
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Introduction: Soil is the main source of water retention and availability for plant uptake. The supplement of water is completely dependent on soil physical properties. The soils with higher values of available water are generally more productive because they can supply adequate moisture to plants during the intervals between irrigation or rainfall events. Generally according tothe spatial and temporal distribution of precipitation, Iran has an arid climate in which most of the relatively low annual precipitation falls from October through April. Thus, water deficiency along with the lack of organic carbon in the soil justifies the necessity of studying the soil, water and plant relationships that may improve the efficiency of water consumption in agricultural practices. For that reason, this research was conducted to investigate the relationship between some soil physical properties and Integral Water Capacity (IWC) index as one of the soil physical quality indices.
Materials and Methods: This study was conducted in Torogh Agricultural and Natural Resources Research Station in Khorasan-Razavi province, north-eastern Iran during 2013-2014. This station is located in south-east of Mashhad city with a semi-arid climate, annual precipitation of 260 mm and mean air temperature of 13.5 °C. The soil was classified in Entisols and Aridisols with a physiographic unit of alluvial plain that generally had medium to coarse textures in topsoil. Thirty points with different soil textures and organic carbon contents were selected as experimental plots. In order to measure different properties of the soil, two soil cores (8 cm diameter × 4 cm length cylinder for bulk density and 5 cm diameter × 5.3 cm length cylinder for sandbox measurements) and one disturbed soil sample (for other measurements) were collected from 0-30 cm depth of each plot. After conducting required laboratory analysis and field measurements using standard methods, the soil moisture curve parameters (RETC program), Porosity (POR), Air Capacity (AC), Relative Field Content (RFC) and Integral Water Capacity (IWC) index, were calculated. In this regard, integration calculations were done by Mathcad Prime 3 software. Finally, the relationship between the measured properties and IWC index were analyzed using Pearson correlation coefficient and stepwise multiple linear regression by SAS (9.1) statistical software.
Results and Discussion: Laboratory analysis results showed that the soil texture classes of samples were loam (40%), silt loam (23%), silty clay loam (17%), clay loam (13%), and sandy loam (7%). On average, very fine sand particles were dominant between five size classes of sand and the lowest values were devoted to very coarse sand particles. Soil porosity and air capacity calculation results indicated that on average bulk soil porosity (PORt) and bulk soil air capacity (ACt) were 0.46 and 0.20 (cm3cm-3), respectively. According to the results, RFC of 60% of studied soil samples were lower than 0.6, 7% were higher than 0.7 and only 33% were between 0.6-0.7 (optimal range). IWC index calculations were resulted in 0.13-0.25 (cm3cm-3) in different soil textures. The highest IWC were related to Loam and Clay Loam textures, respectively. Statistical analyses indicated that there were no significant relationship between soil particles (sand, silt and clay) and organic carbon content with IWC index. The factors of soil bulk density and RFC were negatively correlated with IWC index that means decreasing the soil bulk density and RFC would lead to the reduction of the effects of water uptake limitation factors by increasing the values of weighting functions (IWC calculations), and improvement of soil physical quality. High significant (P < 0.001) positive correlation coefficients were observed between IWC index and the factors of soil PORt, ACt and soil matrix air capacity (ACf) in this study. Multiple regression analysis results showed that IWC index could be estimated by the factors of ACt and PORt with the determination coefficient of 0.63. The partial determination coefficients indicated that ACt factor accounted for 50% and PORt accounted for 13% of IWC index variations.
Conclusion: The results indicated that in medium to coarse-textured soils, IWC index could be estimated using the bulk soil air capacity (ACt) and bulk soil porosity (PORt) factors that are derived from soil volumetric water content at saturation and field capacity points.
Nader Naderi; Ramin Fazl Oula; Mirkhaleg Ziatabar Ahmadi; Ali Shahnazari; Saeed Khavari Khorasani
Abstract
Introduction: Water shortage is the most important factor affecting crop production in the world. The deficit irrigation is a way to reduce water consumption in farming. The Partial Root- zone Drying (PRD) irrigation is a new improvement in deficit irrigation in which the half of the root zone is irrigated ...
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Introduction: Water shortage is the most important factor affecting crop production in the world. The deficit irrigation is a way to reduce water consumption in farming. The Partial Root- zone Drying (PRD) irrigation is a new improvement in deficit irrigation in which the half of the root zone is irrigated alternatively in scheduled irrigation events. In the fixed partial root zone drying (FPRD) the irrigation is fixed to one side of the root zone in the growing season. Maize is a drought sensitive crop. In maize, secondary traits related to drought resistance are considered in producing tolerate cultivars.
Materials and Methods: An experiment was conducted in order to investigate the effects of regulated deficit irrigation, variable partial root zone drying (PRD) and fixed partial root zone drying (FPRD) on the yield, physiological and photosynthetic parameters of forage maize (KSC 704) during the growing seasons of 2014 in Mashhad region. A factorial experiment based on randomized complete block design with four replications was carried out. The treatments included the full irrigation (FI) and the deficit irrigations (regulated deficit irrigation (DI) and the replacements of 80 % (DI80) and 60 % (DI60) of total water requirement, fixed PRD (FPRD) at 100% (FPRD100), 80% (FPRD80) and 60%(FPRD60) of water requirement, and variable PRD at 100% (PRD100), 80% (PRD80) and 60% (PRD60) of water requirement). Drip irrigation tapes were placed between plant rows. In the full irrigation and regulated deficit irrigation treatments, the plants were irrigated from two sides for every irrigation. In the PRD, one of two neighboring tapes was alternatively used for irrigation. In FPRD, a drip tape was used for two plant rows and irrigation was fixed to one side of the root. The irrigation interval was 3 days for all treatments. Dry and fresh forage yield, leaf area index (LAI), stomatal conductance, leaf relative water content (RWC) and chlorophyll content were measured.
Results and Discussions: All the measured traits were affected by the deficit irrigation. The highest fresh forage yield (72099 kg/ha) was produced by the full irrigation treatment. The statistical comparison showed that there was no significant difference between regulated deficit irrigation and PRD method for the fresh forage yield. But the FPRD treatment reduced the fresh forage yield. There was no significant difference between the fresh forage yield of FI and PRD80 treatments. The dry forage yield was affected by the different irrigation methods, irrigation levels and the interaction effects of the treatments (p
