Yield and water use efficiency of potato grown under different irrigation and nitrogen levels in an arid region

► Potato tuber yield varied widely under different amounts of water and N applied through drip irrigation system. ► Water stress is a more yield limiting factor than N fertilizer for potato production. ► The decrease in potato yield in the deficit irrigation treatments was mainly due to a decrease i...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Agricultural water management 2012-07, Vol.110, p.9-15
Main Authors: Badr, M.A., El-Tohamy, W.A., Zaghloul, A.M.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Acceptability
Agricultural and forest climatology and meteorology. Irrigation. Drainage
Agronomy. Soil science and plant productions
Arid region
Arid regions
arid zones
Availability
Biological and medical sciences
cropping systems
Fertilizers
Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology
General agronomy. Plant production
Irrigation
irrigation rates
irrigation water
microirrigation
N uptake
nitrogen
nitrogen content
Nitrogen use efficiency
nutrient use efficiency
Potato
potatoes
semiarid zones
Shortages
Uptakes
Water management
water shortages
Water stress
Water use efficiency
yield components
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Summary:► Potato tuber yield varied widely under different amounts of water and N applied through drip irrigation system. ► Water stress is a more yield limiting factor than N fertilizer for potato production. ► The decrease in potato yield in the deficit irrigation treatments was mainly due to a decrease in tuber weight. ► The yield reduction under severe water deficit was much more severe at high N levels. ► Water use efficiency was conditioned by N level, but its effect decreased as the irrigation water increased. Water and nitrogen supply in potato cropping systems is an essential factor for controlling production level especially in arid and semi-arid regions. Shortage water availability and escalating irrigation costs along with high prices of fertilizers have caused attention to adopt practices to improve water and N use efficiency. The present work was conducted to assess the interaction effect of different amounts of water (W) and nitrogen (N) applied through drip irrigation on potato production, water use efficiency (WUE), nitrogen use efficiency (NUE) and total N uptake in an arid region. Potato plants were subjected to four irrigation treatments, 100% (W1.0), 80% (W0.8), 60% (W0.6) and 40% (W0.4) of crop ET (evapotranspiration) and four N levels, 160 (N160), 220 (N220), 280 (N280) and 340(N340)kgNha−1. Plants grown under full irrigation supply resulted in the highest tuber yield and there were significant reductions in total yield and yield components when applying less amount of water. Tuber weight was more sensitive to water deficit than tuber number, where the decrease in potato yield in the deficit water treatments was mainly due to a decrease in tuber weight (R2=0.982). Except for tuber number per plant, application of N adversely affected yield and yield components, when N level applied above 280kgNha−1 at W0.6, and above 220kgNha−1 at W0.4, respectively. The WUE was improved by N supply, but its effect decreased as the irrigation level increased. The WUE at W1.0, which produced the highest tuber yield, was 146kgha−1mm−1 with N340 but this increased to 195kgha−1mm−1 at W0.4 with N220. The NUE was affected greatly by the applied N amount and increased as the N level was decreased. The highest NUE value 176kgyieldkg−1N was obtained at W1.0 treatment with N160 but this decreased to 136kgyieldkg−1N with N340. The uptake of N increased with increase in the level of N applied up to the highest level but the reverse was true for N recovery. These result
ISSN:0378-3774
1873-2283
DOI:10.1016/j.agwat.2012.03.008