Corn Yield Response to Deficit Irrigation

Because dwindling water supplies are limiting crop production, a field study was conducted during 2005-2009 in southwest Kansas to determine the yield response of corn to irrigation and evapotranspiration (ETc), and to document plant growth parameters and soil water use. Corn was grown in a five-year rotation of corn-corn-wheat-grain sorghum-sunflower. Results from the corn after sunflower and corn after corn are presented here. Six irrigation treatments were produced by applying 25 mm of irrigation every 5 to 17 days. Year-to-year grain yields averaged over irrigation and crop sequence appeared to be correlated with leaf area index, which possibly reflected the severity of hail events that occurred in four of the five years of the study. However, dry matter accumulation per plant did not vary across irrigation treatments. Surface residue coverage from the previous year's crop was 38% for sunflower and 61% for corn. ETc and productivity, also known as water use efficiency (WUE), decreased significantly as irrigation decreased. The deficit irrigation treatments used more of the previous non-growing season precipitation than the fully irrigated treatment due to greater soil water storage capacity in the drier soil profile. Furthermore, these treatments extracted more soil water during the growing season as irrigation decreased. Linear models of ETc predicted grain and dry matter yields with R 2 values of 0.67 and 0.59, respectively. The relationship of relative grain yield and ETc was also linear and more pronounced, with an R 2 value of 0.82. In contrast, the relationship of relative yield and irrigation followed a curvilinear model. During the five-year study, variability in yields increased as irrigation decreased, illustrating a greater income risk with less irrigation. Yield response to irrigation, especially over multiple years, is essential information to build economic studies of cropping alternatives, deficit irrigation management, and income risk. These relationships need to be developed regionally to characterize the effects of environmental factors, especially precipitation.