Aregash Deboch Jelos* and Sirak Tekleab Gebrekristos
Potato is produced in central rift valley of Ethiopia as one of the staple food and the production and productivity is limited by the scarcity of water. A field experiment was conducted to study the influence of soil moisture stress at different growth stages of potato with the objectives of identifying crop growth stages sensitive to soil moisture stress, to determining the critical time for irrigation application under condition of limited water resources. The experiment was conducted on sandy loam soil at Wondo Genet in SNNPRs Southern, Ethiopia during the 2017/18 cropping season. The experimental design was randomized complete block design with three replications seven treatments including the control treatment were devised to represent some possible combinations of water application. The highest and lowest mean tuber yield was obtained from plants grown under non stressed soil moisture (ranging from 10.20 to 29.16 t/ha across treatments). Most of the parameters (dependent variable) that are plant height, branch number, tuber number and total tuber yield showed significant(p<0.05) yield in their values as moisture stress increased at different growth stages. Growth parameters were slightly affected by moisture stress when the stress was imposed during the initial and late season growth stages but they were not significant. Initial and Mid-season growth stage of potato tuber was the most critical stage (causes 65% yield loss) for soil moisture stress followed by development stage (49% yield reduction). The maximum water use efficiency was obtained from T5 ranging from 4.3 kg/m3 to 7.9 kg/m3 across treatments.
PDFShare this article
Irrigation & Drainage Systems Engineering received 835 citations as per Google Scholar report
