Alfalfa Crop Irrigation Modeling in Salamiyya, Syria

The study was carried out during three successive growing seasons from 2015 to 2017 at Salamiyya Research Center, Syria. That was to study the alfalfa crop water requirement and how we can improve its water crop productivity. Three treatments: drip method (A1), sprinkler method (A2), and surface one (A3) were designed and implemented using complete randomized block design (CRBD) with three replicators as well as surface irrigation treatment (A4) as the area’s farmer does. All these programs: WEAP21 (SPAW and MABIA), NewLoc-Clim1.10, and ET0Calc had been used. The simulation results for SPAW and MABIA programs after calibration were approximately identical. Alfalfa response coefficient reached 0.78 in the modern irrigation methods and 0.91 in the surface irrigation method in this type of soil. The water saving has been reached at 29% for drip irrigation and 22% for sprinkler irrigation compared with the surface irrigation method. There were tangible significant differences at the Water Use Efficiency (WUE), whereas treatment A1 excelled all the rest treatments, and the order of this excellence was as follows: A1 > A2 > A3 > A4. Finally, the integrated program (MABIA) and other programs can be considered very modern and sophisticated tools, making the water expert save time, effort, and costs in addition to obtaining very accurate results.