Evaluation crop evapotranspiration and crop coefficient of squash (zucchini) with subsurface water retention technology(SWRT) and without SWRT

Abstract

In this days because of the water scarcity world trends to reduce the water losses and increase the yield to fill lack of water and food by using modern technologies to reduce the evapotranspiration and deep percolation of water with pesticide, fertilizer and nutrient that percolate to ground water and pollute the environmental of ground water. Therefor many countries go to apply new technology by utilizing polyethylene membrane sheet called mulch on soil surface to prevent the evaporation, in addition to utilize polyethylene membrane sheet to prevent the deep percolation which called subsurface water retention technique (SWRT). Additionally, calculation of actual crop water consumptive(actual crop evapotranspiration) to estimation the actual crops water amount and not profusion by the water via measuring crop evapotranspiration (ETc) for each crop and cropping pattern. This method considered best method for water rationing and reduced the waste (squandering) via using modern technique. This research was sited in Sadat-Alhindyia township in Babylon governorate in middle of Iraq about squash crop (zucchini) that planted in plots (lines) irrigated by drip irrigation. The research carried out on two treatment, first treatment using membrane sheet(SWRT) under root zone of squash crop (zucchini) (TA) as ratio 2:1 ( width: height) and the second treatment plot using without SWRT technique (TB). The results that the average and accumulated crop evapotranspiration to TB was more than TA by 18.3%. This indicates that the using SWRT technique assisted on reduce crop consumptive amount and reduce of losses by deep percolation. . Number of irrigation was in plot TA less than TB by 12 %.