Effect of Moisture Stress on Maize (Zea Mays L.) Yield and Water Productivity

Presently and in the future, irrigated agriculture faces water scarcity.Irrigation management will shift from emphasizing productivity per unit area to maximizing the production per unit of water consumed.Field experiment was carried out to determine the water use efficiency of maize under moisture stress condition and to identify the critical depth of application with limited effect on yield.The experiment was conducted at Awash Melkassa agricultural research center farm.The experiment was carried out in RCBD with three replications.Treatments include seven moisture stress levels and a control treatment (full irrigation, 85% ETc, 75% ETc, 65% ETc, 55% ETc, 45% ETc, 35% ETc and 25% ETc).The different levels of irrigation had a highly significant (p>0.01)effect on maize grain yield, above ground biomass yield and harvest index.The highest grain yield was obtained from full irrigation (5524.8Kg/ha) which was not significantly different with 85% ETc application (5206.5 Kg/ha).In terms of water productivity, 25% ETc gives the highest water productivity and significantly different to all other treatments.In terms of yield, 85% ETc application gave better water use efficiency and had no significant difference with all treatments except with 100 and 25%ETc application.Hence, increased water saving, and associated water productivity can be achieved with the application of 85% ETc, without significant reduction on yield.In areas where water scarcity is high, 35 to 75% ETc application appears to be promising to depend on the availability of water resources with negligible trade-off in grain yield and water use efficiency.