Investigation of applied water and water productivity of potato fields in the conditions of farmers in Fars province

Due to the scarcity of water resources in agriculture, improving the irrigation management of potato fields can reduce applied water and increase the productivity of this important crop. For this purpose, it is necessary to have sufficient and accurate information about the status of applied water and water productivity in the conditions of farmers'' management. Therefore, the amount of water applied and water productivity in the conditions of farmers'' management of the three major potato production areas in Fars province were investigated. Three areas of Abadeh, Eghlid and Khorrambid and three systems of surface, sprinkler and drip irrigation were considered as experimental treatments. T-test was used for statistical comparison of the results. The correlation between different factors was examined by determining the correlation coefficient. Results showed that the differences in applied water, yield and water productivity in different regions were not significant at the level of 5%. The average yield and water productivity were 43.6 tons/ha and 4.87 kg/m3, respectively. The use of sprinkler and drip irrigation systems reduced the applied water by 1100 cubic meters per hectare, increased the yield by 10.5 tons per hectare and increased productivity by about 1.8 kg/m3. However, these differences were not statistically significant at the 5% level. The average amount of water used in potato fields was 9420 m3/ha, which was 3350 m3/ha less than the average required water. If irrigation is based solely on the farmer''s experience and irrigation scheduling is not considered, there may be no difference between applied water in different irrigation systems and the water supplied may be less than required. Therefore, in order to reduce the effects of water stress, increase crop and water productivity, in addition to the irrigation system, serious attention should be paid to field irrigation scheduling and volumetric water delivery