Effect of Smart Irrigation Technique on Water Use Efficiency for Zea mays under East Owainat Conditions

Abstract

Through deep percolation away from the plant's effective root zone, the smart irrigation technology
minimizes irrigation water loss and chemical fertilizer rates, optimizing fertilizer and irrigation water
use efficiency in sandy soil while preserving crop health and quality. Field experiment was conducted
to cultivate two summer successive seasons of 2021 and 2022 in East Owainat area, new valley
Governorate, Egypt to compare the effect of smart irrigation (SIT) and traditional manual irrigation
(MIT) techniques at different chemical fertilizer rates (CFR=100, 85, 70 and 55% of recommended
chemical fertilizer N, P, K rates) under sprinkler (SI) and surface drip (SDI) irrigation systems on crop
quality parameters, grain yield (GY), seasonal actual evapotranspiration (ETa), water use efficacy
(WUE) and irrigation water use efficiency (IWUE) for summer maize (Zea mays L.) hybrid variety,
30M84.The results reported that the quality parameters and grain yield of summer maize crop gave the
maximum values under SIT at CFR=100% under SDI treatment for both the 1st and 2nd season
respectively ,while the seasonal ETa gave the minimum values: 634.51and 625.92 mm for both seasons
respectively, under SIT at CFR=100% under SDI treatment, finally, the highest values of summer maize
crop WUE and IWUE were 1.36 and 1.27 kg m-3; 1.43 and 1.33 kg m-3 for both seasons, respectively,
under SIT at CFR=100% under SDI treatment. This study indicated that cultivating summer maize under
the SIT at CFR=100% with SDI treatment could reduce applied irrigation water by approximately 27%
and 28%, while increasing grain yield by about 33% and 35% in both seasons, respectively, compared
to the control treatment (MIT at CFR=100% under SI). These findings show that smart irrigation can
improve scheduled irrigation in a valuable and adaptable way. As a result, this method is advised for
effective automated irrigation systems that significantly reduce water consumption while increasing
production.