Study of relationship between soybean crop yield and water consumption

Subject Areas : Farm water management with the aim of improving irrigation management indicators

Davood Akbari Nodehi ¹ (Assistant Professor, Ghaemshahr Branch, Islamic Azad University)

Received: 2011-07-11 Accepted : 2011-10-27 Published : 2012-03-02

Keywords: Soybean, sensitive growth stage, Water Stress, WUE,

Abstract :

Conservation of good quality water is an important challenge in arid and semi-arid regions. The objectives of this study were to determine the most sensitive growing stage to drought stress and to estimate yield reaction coefficient during water shortage period and water use efficiency. An experiment with complete randomized block scheme by 3 repetitions and 7 water treatment was established for JK cultivar of soybean in spring cultivation. Water deficit treatments in different growing stages were consisted of irrigation in full growing period (Control Treatment), irrigation with moisture stress in vegetative stage, irrigation with water stress in flowering stage, irrigation with moisture stress in grain filling stage, irrigation with moisture stress in vegetative stage and flowering stage, irrigation with moisture stress in vegetative stage and grain filling stage, irrigation with moisture stress in flowering stage and grain filling stage. The obtained results indicated that flowering stage is the most sensitive stage for soybean growing period in Mazandaran Province. In irrigation with water stress in vegetative stage, water consumption was reduced 28 percent, while 4 percent reduction of yield was observed. Irrigation with moisture stress in vegetative stage also had Maximum water use efficiency.