Effect of two types of irrigation on growth, yield and water productivity of maize under different irrigation treatments in an arid environment

Abstract The experiments were carried out to study the behaviour of deficit drip irrigation based on the actual evapotranspiration (ET C ) at 100, 90, 75 and 60% of ET C respectively, and a separate furrow irrigation, on maize growth components, yield, water productivity and crop production function. The experiments were conducted under a randomized complete block design with three replications. The highest (407 and 275 mm) and lowest (244 and 165 mm) values of ET C were recorded under I 1.00 and I 0.60 for drip irrigation for two growing seasons. Compared with the furrow irrigation treatment, water savings of 33.3–60.0 and 33.4–60.0% were found under drip irrigation treatments. The highest grain yield was observed under I 1.00 : 10 100 and 9940 kg ha −1 for two growing seasons, respectively. All the drip irrigation treatments significantly increased the grain yield when compared to the furrow irrigation method. However, a better response factor was observed under I 75 for both years. It was also noted that all the growth and grain yield components were significantly affected by the different water deficits under drip irrigation. © 2020 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.