Enhancing economic water productivity under on farm reservoirs in diversified rainfed cropping systems

Document Type : Research Paper

Authors

ICAR-Central Research Institute for Dryland Agriculture, Hyderabad-500 059, India.

Abstract

A long term study was done to assess the impact of on farm reservoirs (OFR) on oil seed
and cereal based cropping systems with vegetables (okra, tomato and carrot) in semi-arid
alfisol of southern Telangana region. Two supplemental irrigation (SI) depths (30 and 50 mm)
from OFR with raingun system were studied for assessing the water productivity and
profitability of the technology in these cropping systems. Cropping system using sole crop
of groundnut or maize, later was found to be more profitable (3 times) with 50 mm SI in
2 critical growth stages having annualized net benefit (ANB) of $ 971 - 998 / ha and
economic productivity (EP) of 31 Cents / m3 under different capacities of OFR (500-1500
m3). In rainy season with single filling of OFR and deficit irrigation of 30 mm SI,
maize+tomato was found to be more profitable (ANB: $ 1659 - 2325 / ha and EP: 37 - 51
Cents / m3) as compared to sole crop or with okra. During rainy season and post-rainy season
with second filling of OFR at SI depth of 30 mm, maize+tomato+carrot was the most
profitable option (ANB: $ 2544 - 3012 / ha and EP: 37 - 45 Cents/ m3) as compared to any
other combination of the crops. The study revealed that the best economical crop combination
under deficit irrigation of 30 mm will make the rainfed agriculture more remunerative with
OFR technology with efficient use of surface water.

Keywords

International Journal of Plant Production
Volume 11, Issue 1 - Serial Number 1
January 2017
Pages 193-207

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