Challenge of Rainfall Uncertainty in the Study of Deficit Irrigation

One of the alternative methods for managing irrigation water is deficit irrigation, particularly alternate furrow irrigation (AFI). This deficit in irrigation is affected by uncontrolled rainfall. In line with this, rainfall uncertainty causes a variation between the measured actual crop evapotranspiration and the theoretical crop evapotranspiration. Let us imagine that rain falls during the deficit irrigation research, and the soil moisture under the deficit experiment is then raised to the soil field capacity. It is incorrect to report the result as a deficit. Thus, there is a research gap on the effect of rainfall uncertainty on the quantity of theoretical and actual crop evapotranspiration under deficit irrigation. This study was carried out at the Arba Minch University demonstration site on onion crops. Using CROPWAT 8.0 software, the reference evapotranspiration (ETo) was calculated using the Penman-Monteith formula. The crop coefficient and ETo were used to calculate the theoretical crop evapotranspiration. In contrast, actual crop evapotranspiration was calculated using soil moisture measurements before and after each irrigation event after applying theoretical crop evapotranspiration. As a result, there is a significant difference between the calculated theoretical crop evapotranspiration and actual crop evapotranspiration from a deficit study. Thus, the calculated seasonal theoretical crop evapotranspiration was 201.72 mm. On the other hand, the actual crop evapotranspiration was 275.82 mm. This revealed that the actual crop evapotranspiration was greater than the calculated theoretical crop evapotranspiration by 36.7%. Uncontrolled rainfall was identified as the output’s cause. This has an evident effect on the deficit in experimental research. Hence, conducting the deficit experiment in a greenhouse is more reasonable. In addition, it is possible to assess actual crop evapotranspiration based on daily soil moisture measurements and report the deficit level based on the measured amount.