Effects of Changing Border Dimensions, Fertilizer Application Program and Using the Winnowed Seeds on Water Use Efficiency in Barley Fields in Miandoab Region

A field research was carried out to ascertain the effectiveness of the application of Improved Farm Practices including adjusting border size, improving soil fertility by changing the fertilizer application program, and using cleaned and disinfected seeds on water consumption and crop yield in four barley farms located in the Miandoab region. The new farm technological practices were applied in treatment farms in order to compare the results with the corresponding values obtained from the control farm, where agricultural practices were performed by the local farmer according to his own knowledge. Crop growth indices such as leaf area index, cluster and plant height during the growing season and thousand seed weight and grain yield at the harvesting time were measured. Soil water moisture content of the root zone layer during the growing season and the depths of the irrigation water and the surface runoff of each irrigation event were measured. In order to qualify the effectiveness of the new technological practices applied, the performance indices such as Water Productivity (WP), Water Use Efficiency (WUE), and Water Application Efficiency (Ea) were calculated by collecting the required field data from each one of the farms. The results indicates that the application of new farm technologies increased WP of the treatment farms as compared to the control farms about 20% and improved WUE about 24%. Adjusting the border size decreased the irrigation time and the depth of deep percolation. It furthermore, increased the Ea of treatment farms about 20%.