Improving the crop productivity in rainfed areas with water harvesting structures and deficit irrigation strategies

Watershed management practices aim at improving the agricultural productivity in rainfed agricultural areas by conserving rainwater for an extended period. The stored rainwater in the harvesting structures is used for meeting crop water demand. The water use efficiencies of these structures can be further enhanced through adoption of deficit irrigation management strategies. In this study, deficit irrigation scheduling is formulated using a simulation-optimization framework for a rainfed agricultural area with supplemental irrigation from a check dam in Kondepi IWMP area, near Kondepi Mandal, Prakasam district, Andhra Pradesh, India. The results from the study indicate that the adoption of irrigation management strategies have the potential to improve the productivity and bring more area under irrigation with an increase of 20% and 140% for yield and irrigated area respectively. The outcomes of this study indicate that the proposed method can be suggested for developing optimum irrigation strategies under water deficit in rainfed agriculture having water harvesting structures for an efficient utilization of stored rainwater.