Implementation of technical recomendations in farms and its impact on grain corn water productivity Improvement (Case study: farms of North Khuzestan region)

The North of Khuzestan province is one of the most important agricultural hubs of Iran. With the implementation of the Khuzestan Land Reclamation Plan (Provincial Plan), a suitable platform has been provided to increase field and horticulture crops production. Promoting research findings for proper applying of water resources, soil and agricultural inputs to increase water performance and productivity were the important goals of implementing model extension sites and pilots in these areas. For this purpose, 11 farms were selected in 2017, to apply technical recommendations. In each of the selected farms, the amount of irrigation water was measured during the cropping season, and the corn grain yield and physical irrigation water productivity were determined and compared with the data of the fields around each site (control treatment). The results showed that in the control treatment, the average grain corn yield and physical irrigation water productivity were 6450 kg ha-1 and 0.8 kg m-3, respectively, which by applying technical solutions of using the optimal length in furrow irrigation, reducing the inflow (cutback method), applying minimum tillage, management crop nutrition, pest management, pathogens and weeds increased to 7232 kg ha-1 and 1 kg m-3 and this increasing was statistically significant at 1% level (p=0.001).