STUDY OF EFFECT OF ALTERNATE FURROW IRRIGATION IN SUGARCANE (VAR CP69-1062) AT DIFFERENT GROWTH STAGES ON QUALITY AND QUANTITY OF YIELD

摘要

Sugarcane is one of the important crops in Khuzestan province. It consumes large amount of water, specially in the warm season. In this study in order to optimize water consumption by sugarcane, five treatments with three replications using randomized complete block design were applied in Karun Agro Industry, Inc. The 1st treatment was conventional irrigation; the 2nd was alternate furrow irrigation during the growth season and the 3rd, 4th and 5th treatments were irrigation in alternate furrow for a part of the growing season, followed by conventional irrigation for the remaining part. These treatments were sequentially included with the alternate furrow irrigation method, at the beginning of the growing season, during the mid-stage growing season and finally at the late stage of growing season. The results indicated that there were no significant differences among the treatments, but the 3rd treatment showed an increase of 8.02 tons/ha of sugarcane and 2.08 tons/ha sugar more than the conventional irrigation. In terms of per cent of recovery sugar, 3rd, 4th and 5th treatments showed about 5% better performance in comparison with the conventional method. The results also, indicated that water use efficiencies of 1st and 2nd treatments were 0.51 kg/m~3 and 0.38 kg/m~3, respectively. Therefore, it can be concluded that the alternate furrow irrigation system in general can increase cane yield and water productivity.