Performance of supplementary irrigation systems for corn silage in the sub-humid areas

Abstract

In the humid and sub-humid areas, agricultural production is largely rain fed and this needs to be urgently supplemented by irrigation practice if the country is to meet its food demand.  A two years study was carried out at the experimental site of the Institute of Agricultural Technology and Biosystems Engineering, Johan Heinrich von Thünen Institute (vTI), Braunschweig, Germany to compare performance of maize crop for silage production using three different irrigation systems; rain fed, drip and rain-gun sprinkler.  Growth parameters such as plant height, stem diameter were measured.  The total yields of silage were obtained for all treatments at the harvesting.  The experimental results reveal that total yields obtained from different treatments were 25.76, 24.23 and 9.30 Mg ha^-1 in drip, rain-gun and rain fed irrigated maize, respectively.  The results also showed that the water use efficiency reached 11.01 kg m^-3 for drip irrigation in while it was  8.84 kg m^-3 for rain-gun system.

Keywords: Silage, performance, drip, rain-gun, rain-fed irrigation, water use efficiency