Abstract:
Water scarcity is a major constraint for the production in arid and semi-arid
areas. Deficit irrigation and application method in furrow irrigation are
important concerns to improve crop water use efficiency in water scarce area.
The field experiment was carried out at Amibara private irrigation project, Arba
Minch south Ethiopia, during 2020 pepper growing season with objectives of
evaluating the effect of deficit irrigation on pepper yield and crop water use
efficiency under furrow irrigation systems. The treatment consisted of three deficit
irrigation levels (50%, 75% and 100% ETc) under three furrow irrigation
techniques (conventional, alternate and fixed furrow). The experiment was laid
out as a random complete block design with three replications. Analysis of
variance indicated that there was a highly significantly (P<0.01) difference
among treatments in pepper growth, yield and water use efficiency. The highest
pepper yield was obtained from 100%ETc under conventional furrow system and
shows not significantly difference with AFI100%ETc application. The water use
efficiency was found higher in AFI with 50%ETc application and shows no
significant difference with irrigation application of 100%ETc application under
alternate furrow irrigation. Alternate furrow irrigation with 100% of irrigation
water application resulted in 50% irrigation water saving for 6.14% yield
reduction. Hence, in AFI with 100%ETc application can be considered as the practice in a water scarce area. The study indicated that deficit irrigation is
possible in pepper crop production and it is practical technique to save largeamounts of irrigation water.
