Title: Comparison of cucumber and watermelon yield and water use in clay pitcher and furrow irrigation methods

Authors: Hossein Malekinezhad

Addresses: Faculty of Natural Resources, Yazd University, 89195-741, Yazd, Iran

Abstract: The field experiments were conducted to quantify the influence of furrow and clay pitcher irrigation methods on crop water productivity (CWP) and fruit yield of cucumber and watermelon crops in Yazd region in Central Iran. The comparison of the CWP of cucumber and watermelon indicates that in clay pitcher irrigation the value of CWP is 4.91 and 4.79 times as big as the furrow irrigation, respectively. The cucumber fruit harvesting stage was 49 days from June 2nd to July 20th. Total fruit yield was 2.5 kg per plant for pitcher irrigation and 2.04 kg per plant for furrow irrigation. The watermelon fruit harvesting stage was 55 days from 16 June to 10 August. Total fruit yield was 8.61 kg per plant for pitcher irrigation and 7.86 kg per plant for furrow irrigation. The results indicate that traditional pitcher method can prevent huge amount of water losses, especially in arid and semi-arid regions of the world.

Keywords: clay pitcher irrigation; furrow irrigation; cucumber yield; watermelon yield; crop water productivity; crop yield; water losses; arid regions; semi-arid regions; Iran; water consumption; water saving.

DOI: 10.1504/IJW.2015.070359

International Journal of Water, 2015 Vol.9 No.3, pp.275 - 285

Received: 05 Apr 2013
Accepted: 16 Dec 2013

Published online: 03 Jul 2015 *

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