Water Management in Horticultural Crops (1+1)

Managing the available irrigation water

• Irrigation is in short supply in most locations and therefore demands a careful and economic use. Economy of water helps to bring more areas under protective irrigation and leads to a greater crop production in areas of limited water supply. On areas where water is scarce, farmers are not able to apply normal irrigation to crops and are forced to skip some irrigation.
• It is therefore necessary to decide a priority of stages of crops when irrigations are to be applied and the stages when one or more irrigations can be skipped. The critical stages of water need of crops receive the foremost attention. It is necessary to simultaneously consider and weigh the relative importance of the various stages for irrigation and the availability of water. A preferential status of crop stages according to their relative importance to yield should be considered for irrigation in areas of water scarcity.