Zain-ul-Islam AGR-705 (water relation in plants)

PHDAG-20-04

Agronomic practices to improve water usage efficiency of arable crops

Freshwater resources are becoming scarce and polluted, while their demands for agricultural,
domestic, industrial, environmental, and recreational uses are on a continuous rise around the
globe. Agriculture is the largest consumer of water, and total evapotranspiration from global
agricultural land could double in the next 50 years if trends in food consumption and current
practices of production continue.

Water is a limited resource, a scarce asset, because its demand usually exceeds its natural
availability. This pressure on water resources will increase in the future due to growing
populations and economies, the effects of climate change, and an expected higher standard of
living. Water is essential for agricultural production and the food security of the world
population. In the coming decades, a growing number of regions will face increasing water
scarcity while, due to the expectation that the global population will reach more than 9 billion
people by 2050, demand for food is expected to surge by more than 50% . Considering that
about 70% of global freshwater withdrawals are directly used in agriculture, accurate
management of agricultural water resources to increase crop water use efficiency (WUE) is
one of the main targets in research on plant–soil–water relations.

In agricultural terms, WUE (kg/ha/mm) is defined as grain yield obtained per unit area
(kg/ha) with a certain amount of water (mm) and it varies from crop to crop. The WUE of
maize and sorghum (C4 plants) are two to three times higher than the WUE of wheat and oats
(C3 plants) and there are even differences between cultivars.

Agronomic approaches

Agronomic approaches focus on management practices to increase transpiration and decrease

water loss through evaporation, runoff and deep drainage. Examples include conservation
tillage, early planting, cultivars with rapid early development and the combination of plant
population and row spacing. The principle of early planting, cultivars with rapid vegetative
development and the combination of plant population and row spacing is that the soil surface
is covered as quickly as possible by the leaf canopy to minimise evaporation losses. This
practice is only applicable in certain areas. Usually, early rain is very unreliable and crops
planted early will be easily exposed to drought, especially when planted on a dry soil profile

Agronomic practices available for either reducing evaporation from the soil surface or
increasing the total soil water available for crops

 Reducing evaporation from soil surface

 Mulching
 Application of fertilizer
 Modifying plant population
 Selecting varieties with rapid early growth
  Early sowing

 Increasing total water supply

 Irrigation
 Rain harvesting
 Cultivation to reduce run-off and improve infiltration
 Weed control
 Fallowing
 Application of fertilizer
 Selecting varieties with extensive root systems

Conservation tillage (mulching)

Mulching means to cover the soil between plants with a layer of material. It keeps roots and
bulbs cool in summer and warm in winter. Mulching prevents water from evaporating. Less
watering is therefore needed. It protects the soil from wind, rain and sun, and suppresses
weed growth by blocking out sunlight. It is an obvious practice that can reduce evaporation,
but it can also reduce runoff, increase infiltration and reduce soil temperatures. With moisture
conservation in sandy soils in semi-arid areas, the only advantage of mulch, however, is that
it only decreases the rate of evaporation when the soil is wet, and not the total evaporation
amount of water in the profile.

Application of fertilizer

A more immediate, practical means of increasing water use efficiency is by the application of
fertilizers. Associated with the increased yields was an increase in the WUE mainly because
the fertilizer increased the early growth of cereals by allowing more rapid growth of the
leaves and these differences persisted until harvest. The increased leaf area shaded the damp
soil surface, intercepting more of the incident radiation so that water which would otherwise
have evaporated was transpired instead.

Modifying plant population

In the drier areas the optimum plant population for most grain crops is directly related to the
amount of water during the growing season. Plant population should therefore be adjusted
very carefully to prevent the advantage of the limited evaporation from being exceeded by the
increased water demand.

Change of Crop Varieties

Meeting food supply for a growing population will require other innovative strategies rather
than increasing cultivation areas or abstraction of sources. In drier areas, growing drought-
resistant crops will save a substantial amount of water and also ensure high crop yield.
Similarly, more acreage of rice would be grown in water-rich areas at lower water supplying
cost and less pollution. Crop morphology can also be manipulated to optimize the
interception of radiant energy during early growth and thus reduce soil evaporation and
increase transpiration.

Promotion of Agroforestry

Agroforestry can offer a promising solution for improving water use productivity. Tree roots
enable infiltration of precipitation to the aquifer and control its release down the slope during
the drought period. Similarly, tree roots can influence soil moisture through hydraulic
redistribution (HR) and therefore enable crops to access sufficient moisture even during the
drier period of the year. In monocropping systems, field crops suffer from excessive
evapotranspiration losses. This is caused by direct solar radiation to crop canopies and soil
surfaces. Where trees are integrated, they act like an umbrella to crops.

Early sowing

For most of the arable crops early sowing improves water usage efficiency. This is because
with early sowing there is more rainfall during their cycle, requiring less supplemental
irrigation.

Increasing total water use

Many management practices are used to increase the water available to a crop and provided
that this water is transpired and does not simply increase soil evaporation, increased growth
will result.

Supplementary irrigation and rain-harvesting

Both have been used around the Mediterranean for many centuries to increase the water
supply available to crops and many ancient underground systems for water delivery still exist.
The efficiency with which irrigation water is converted to dry matter depends on many
factors including the design of the system, the method of application, and the timing and
amount of application. In general, though, WUE is rarely as high as in rain fed conditions
because irrigation schemes are often sited in more arid areas which experience larger
saturation deficits.

Weed control

Weeds pose severe problems in many farmers' fields particularly in the wetter and warmer
areas. They can dramatically decrease the WUE of crop production, particularly in food
legume crops which compete less vigorously with weeds. During the cool winter months,
when transpiration by crops and weeds is small, weedy crops use only marginally more water
than clean crops. However, during late spring and early summer, weeds compete vigorously
for available moisture and suppress crop growth and yield considerably.

Where suitable herbicides are available to farmers, they are frequently used, although many
farmers still prefer to hand-weed cereal crops for fodder supply.

Cultivation to reduce run-off and improve infiltration

Deep tillage is used on some soil types to reduce run-off and improve infiltration, although its
effectiveness in conserving soil water for a succeeding crop may be limited if appreciable
drying occurs during the hot summer months.

Fallowing

Fallow is a farming technique in which arable land is left without sowing for one or more
vegetative cycles. The goal of fallowing is to allow the land to recover and store organic
matter while retaining moisture and disrupting the lifecycles of pathogens by temporarily
removing their hosts. Fallowing is also used to increase the amount of water available for the
next season although the amount available is highly dependent upon soil depth, type and
whether weeds are controlled.

Application of fertilizer

Application of fertilizer also tends to increase slightly the total water use of crops, either by
increasing the depth of water extraction or increasing the amount extracted from specific soil
layers or both.

Selecting varieties with extensive root systems

It is frequently suggested that improvements to root systems may increase water use by crops.
Even in dry areas, water often remains in the deeper layers of the soil at the end of crop
growth and crops with deeper root systems should be able to extract this water and thereby
enhance growth.