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one litre intervals.

The amount of water that is needed to reach theplants was c ontrolled by throttle valves on the sub-main lines. CROPWAT input data : Calculations of water and irrigationrequirements utilize inputs of climatic, cro p and soil data, aswell as irrigation and rain data. The climatic input data req uiredare reference evapotranspiration and rainfall. Referenceevapotranspiration was calculated using Eq. (1). The cropparameters used for estimation of crop eva potranspiration, waterbalance calculations, and calculation of yield reductions due towater stress include crop coef cient Kc, length of the growingseason, critical depletion level, p and yield res ponse factor Ky.Literature values of these parameters were adopted (Table 2)(All en et al., 1998).The soil data include information on total available soil watercontent, in itial soil water content at the start of the season, andmaximum in ltration rate by double ring in ltrometer for runoff estimates. Equations of FAO CROPWAT de cit irrigation model : TheFAO Penman-Monteith method (Allen et al., 1998) was used tocalculate ET o in CROPWAT Program as:ET o = (1) Where, ETo = reference crop evapotranspiration (mm/day),R n = net radiation at crop surface (MJ/m 2 .day),G = soil heat ux (MJ/m 2 .day),T = average temperature ( o C),U 2 = wind speed measured at 2m height (m/s),e a -e d = vapour pressure de cit (kpa), = Slope vapor pressure curve (kpa/ o C), = Psychometric constant (kpa/ o C),900 = conversion factor.

Crop water requirements (ET c ) over the rowin season weredetermined from ET o accordin to the followin equation usin crop coef cient K c as:ET c = K c ET o (2)Where, ET c = Crop water requirement, K c = Crop coef cient, ET o = reference evapotranspiration.Crop coef cient K c values as presented by (Allen et al., 1998)were used. Crop irri ation requirements were calculated assumin optimal wat er supply and effective rainfall. Given water inputinto and output from the irri ation system, soil water retentionand in

ltration characteristics alon with estimates of rootin depth; the model perform s a daily soil water balance calculationto predict root zone soil water content. Stress conditions in the root zone were in terms of critical soilwater content, expressed as the fraction of total available soil water(soil water held between eld capacity and wiltin

point), Thecritical soil water content is de

ned here as the soil moisture levelbelow which crop transpiration is limited by soil water content.It varies for different crops and different crop rowth sta e s andis determined by the root density of the crop, evaporation rate,and to some extent by the soil type. Allen et al. (1998) updatedthe estimates of critical soil moisture, representin onset of str ess, previously reported by Doorenbos and Pruitt (1977) andDoorenboss and Kassam (1979). The effect of water stress onyield was quanti ed by relatin the relative yield decrease tothe relative evapotranspiration de

cit with an empirical yieldresponse function (Eq. 3):(3)Where, Y and Y m are expected and maximum crop yields,correspondin to ETa and ETm = ETc, actual and maximumevapotranspiration, respectively; K y is a crop yield response factorthat varies dependin on species, variety, irri a tion method andmana ement, and rowth sta e when de cit evapotranspirationis imposed. Treatment settin for the CROPWAT pro ram

: The selectedcrop, onion was subjected to different waterin re imes usin the F AO-CROPWAT pro ram in de cit irri ation mode. Fourtreatments in relation to stress durin a speci c rowth sta e,additional two treatments in relation to puttin the crop (onion) under stress with a certain amount of irri ation water throu houtthe whole rowt h sta es, and two controls, so a total of ei httreatments were implemented. Evaluation of the CROPWAT model as a de cit irri ationschedulin tool : Data from eld experiment was used to verifythe utility of the CROPWAT model in simulatin de cit irri ationschedulin . The eld experiment applied various irri ation waterlevels to onion crop, thus induci n water stress at various rowthsta es and throu hout the rowin season. Clima tic, soil, and cropdata collected throu h eld experiments were used as inputs to theCROPWAT model. The yield of onion crop was used to validatethe yield reduction extracted from the CROPWAT model.Model ef ciency (ME) developed by Nash and Sutcliffe (1970) iscommonly used and seems app ropriate to evaluate performanceof models. The model ef ciency was similar to the coef cient of determination (r 2 ). However, the residual variation is calculatedusin the means of actual observ ations rather than values fromthe best re ression line between observed and pred icted values(Risse et al., 1994; De Roo, 1993). Model ef ciency was used to Table 2. Onion crop parameters for input into FAO CROPWAT de cit irri ation pro ram in Sekota (Ethiopia)ParameterGrowth sta e (planted on 11 th November 2005)Initial sta eDevelopmentMid-seasonLate seasonTotal/ SeasonalLen th of rowin season (days)2030301595CROPWAT standard Kc (FAO, 1998) 0.70>>> + 1.050.95Crop hei ht (m)0.120.300.400.40Rootin depth (m)0.100.200.300.30Depletio n level (fraction)0.30>>>0.450.50Yield response factor (Ky) (FAO, 1998)0.800.401 .201.001.00+ Intermediate values [ ] )34.01( )(273900)(408.0 22 U eeU T G R d an ++++ 104 Evaluation of the FAO CROPWAT model for de

cit-irrigation scheduling for onion crop determine goodness of t between model prediction and measuredvalues. It is de ned as:(4)Where, ME if model ef ciency, Y o and Y p are measured andpredicted values for event t and Y m is the mean value of measuredvalues for all events considered in the simulation study, and n =total number of events . Results and discussion Irrigation depths of water applied to each treatment is presentedin Table 3. The depth of application presented is with variabledepth and variable intervals to re ll the soil moisture de cit.Irrigation was applied daily. Table 3. Irrigation depths of de cit irrigated tomato experiment at Sekota (Ethiopia)DateInterval(d)TreatmentsT1T2T3T4T5T6T7T8Irrigation (mm)15 Nov411.72.9 2.911.711.711.75.88.821 Nov614.13.53.514.114.114.17.010.627 Nov614.03.57.07.014. 014.07.010.53 Dec614.23.614.23.614.214.27.210.79 Dec615.53.915.53.915.515.57.811 .615 Dec617.04.317.04.317.017.08.612.821 Dec618.44.618.44.618.418.49.213.827 Dec 619.85.019.85.019.819.810.014.92 Jan621.25.321.221.25.321.210.615.98 Jan621.85.5 21.821.85.521.811.016.414 Jan622.35.622.322.35.622.311.216.720 Jan622.75.722.722 .75.722.711.417.026 Jan622.65.722.622.65.722.611.417.031 Jan519.64.919.619.619.6 4.99.814.76 Feb523.25.823.223.223.25.811.617.412 Feb60.00.00.00.00.00.00.00.0Tot al95278.169.8251.7207.6195.3246.0139.6208.8 Yield and water use ef ciency of onion : Treatment T2 (0000)that received only one-fourth of the optimal irrigation wat erthroughout the growing season produced 5.5 t ha -1 . As presentedin Table 4, water de cit at rst and fourth growth stages, resultedin non-signi cantly different yields from the optimum applicationT1 (1111). However, in no ca se the yields were higher than thatin T1 (1111). When the water de cit is at the second and thirdgrowth stages (treatments T4 (1011) and T5 (1101), or during allstages T2 (0000), 50%, and 75%, the yields were signi cantlydifferent from treatment T1 (1111). Simulation of yield reduction of onion with CROPWAT model :Climatic, soil, and calibrated onion crop parameters presentedin Table 2 were e ntered into FAO CROPWAT program forsimulation of yield reduction. The next step was to analyze thetreatments by entering the net irrigation requirement to re

ll thesoil moisture de cit in the CROPWAT program to achieve theyield reduction to water stress imposed during the various cropgrowth stages and throughout the growing season. The sim ulatedonion crop depletion levels in the experimental area were 0.30,0.38, 0.45, and 0.50 at the initial, development, mid season, andlate season stages respect ively (Table 2). This implies that onioncan not tolerate depletion levels of mor e than 30, 38, 45 and 50%at the initial, development, mid, and late stages, resp ectively.There will not be yield reduction until the respective depletionlevels are reached at the respective stages. Yield reduction startswhenever the depleti on is beyond the above indicated limits atthe respective growth stages.The simul ated yield response factor values (K y ) in the respectivegrowth stages indicated that whenever the value of K y is lessthan unity, the relative yield reduction is less than relativeevapotransp iration de cit. Stressing during those stages wasadvantageous to increase the overall water use ef ciency. Thismeans stressing at rst and second stage was advantageous thanstressing at the third stage. Table 5 presents the simulated yieldreductions under different de cit irrigation levels using FAOCROPWAT program. Table 5. Simulated yield reductions of onion under different waterstress levelsT reatmentIrrigation(mm)Yield reduction(%)Rank T1 (1111)278.10.08T2 (0000)69.863.8 1T3 (0111)251.78.06T4 (1011)207.622.14T5 (1101)195.324.83T6 (1110)246.06.67T7 (5 0%ETc)139.641.62T8 (75%ETc)208.819.75 Comparison of yield reduction under eld conditions andCROPWAT model simulation : Table 6 presents comparisons of measured yield reduction for each treatment at eld conditionswith the yield reductions simulated by the CROPWAT model.The yield reductions were expressed as percentages of the yieldobtained under optimal irr igation T1 (1111).From Table 6 it can be observed that the measured yield reduct ionsare comparable to the simulated ones. Both model ef ciency andcorrelation coef cient were 98%. From the students t-test, thevalue of t was calculated to be 17.1 5. Further, in the two tailedtest, the value of r was calculated to be r>0.707 a nd r<-0.707.Even if the value of r 2 was 0.98, the model was ef cient at 5%signi cance level for the r values greater than 0.707 and less than-0.707 on the two t ailed graphs.Furthermore, in agreement to the eld data, the simulated results Table 4. Mean yield (t ha -1 ) comparison using Duncans Multiple RangeTest (DMRT)Treatment Yield*T1 (1111)25.0 0aT2 (0000)5.50eT3 (0111)24.00aT4 (1011)20.76bT5 (1101)17.50cT6 (1110)23.86aT7 (

50%)13.80dT8 (75%)21.26bMean 18.96Coef cient of variation5.80*Values followed by similar letters are not signi cantly different, Evaluation of the FAO CROPWAT model for de cit-irrigation scheduling for onion crop 105 show that the impact of water stress on onion crop yield dependson growth stages . For example, water stresses at the third growthstage leads to a larger yield r eduction than stress at second stage.Smith et al. (2002), in the validation of CROPWAT for de citirrigation, had stated that yield reduction at third stage was moresevere tha n yield reductions at rst, second and fourth stages.Data from eld study were used to verify the applicability of theCROPWAT model in simulatin g de cit irrigation scheduling inthe area. The yield reductions simulated by CROPWAT werecomparable with the measured yield reduction at eld conditionwith model ef ciency and coef cient of correlation values of 98%.Furthermore, the simulated results re ected the impact of stressat different growth stages on yield reduction: stress at third stageleads to a higher yield reduction than stress at rst, second andfourth stagees. Based on the above comparative analysis, it can b econcluded that the CROPWAT model could adequately simulateyield reduction resul ting from water stresses in the study area. References Allen, R., L.A. Pereira, D. Raes and M. Smith, 1998. Crop Evapotranspitation . FAO Irrigation and Drainage Paper No. 56.Rome.De Roo, A.P.J. 1993. Modeling su rface runoff and soil erosion incatchments using Geographical Information System . Ph.D. Thesis.University of Utrecht. The Netherlands.Doorenbos, J. and A.H. Kas sam, 1979. Yield response to water. FAOIrrigation and Drainage Paper No. 33. Rome.Doorenbo, J. and W.O. Pruitt, 1977 . Crop water requirements. FAOIrrigation and Drainage Paper No 24. Rome.Nash, J.E. and J.V. Sutcliffe, 1970 . River ow forecasting throughconceptual models. Part I. A discussion of principles. Journal of Hydrology , 10(3): 282-290.Risse, L.M., M.A. Nearing and M.R. Savabi, 1994. Determining th eGreen-Ampt effective hydraulic conductivity from rainfall-runoff data for the W EPP model. Transactions of the ASAE, 37(2): 411-418.Smith, M. 1993. CLIMWAT for CROPWAT, a climatic database for irrigation planning and management.

FAO Irrigation and DrainagePaper No. 49. Rome.Smith, M., D. Kivumbi and K.L. Hen g, 2002. Use of the FAO CROPWATmodel in de cit irrigation studies. In: De cit irrigation practice . FAOWater report No. 22. Rome.

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