Documenting the Process of Wheat Production in Irrigated and Rain-fed Systems in Golestan Province

Documentation is a fundamental and basic step to improve each productive process, which unfortunately does not have a significant place in the agricultural section of Iran. Production process management in agricultural systems have a direct effect on yield, productivity, input use efficiency, energy consumption and the environmental impact of production. Therefore, the need of monitoring and improving the processes leading to the production of agricultural products is inevitable in order to reduce the challenges associated with farm management in agricultural systems. The first and essential step in improving such process is achievement to the specific and integrated vision on how the activities carry out in current situation, so called process documentation. Documenting the production process in agriculture includes providing all information and activities that shows the course of production from seedbed preparation stage to harvest stage. Depending on weather conditions, Golestan, together with Fars, Khuzestan, Kurdistan and Kermanshah, has been one of the most wheat producing provinces in the country in most years (Bureau of Statistics and Information Technology). This study was conducted in the province of Golestan, in the north of the country, which is located between 36°30 ′ N–38°8′ N and 53°51′ E–56°22′ E. Among the crops in the province of Golestan, autumn wheat has the highest growing area, usually grown from the end of November to the end of December, with an average temperature of 14.5 °C and a total rainfall of 420 mm, and harvested during June. In this study, in order to utilize this method to improve wheat production in both irrigated and rainfed systems of Golestan province, all management operations performed from seedbed preparation stage to harvest stage were recorded on 540 farms with different management. Proportions that farmers applying different method of the management operations were determined through relative and cumulative frequency distribution. In this investigation, the variations and methods of doing each management operation were identified. The cumulative or relative frequency distribution was used to analyze the data. Documentation results show that the average area of irrigated farms was more than rainfed farms. Most of irrigated farms were cultivated by two summer crops including soybean and rice before sowing wheat. Most of rainfed farms had no summer crop but they were cultivated by wheat and barley in the previous year of sowing wheat. Most of producers of irrigated and rainfed wheat have used the moldboard and disks as a primary tillage. In addition, the most type of equipment which used in cultivation of wheat in both systems was grain drill. Morvarid cultivar was the dominant cultivar which used in both irrigated and rainfed wheat systems. Applying more seed rate and extended sowing window in rainfed system comparing with irrigated system were another results of this survey. Half of farmers have used at least 95 and 70 kg Nitrogen fertilizer in the irrigated and rainfed investigated farms, respectively. In both systems, Geranstar and Topic were the most used herbicides, Tilt was the most used fungicide and Diazinon was the most used pesticide. Farmers preferred to use of conventional irrigation for their farms. The harvesting time of wheat was ranged from the early May to middle of June. The average yield of irrigated wheat was 3845 kg ha-1 and more than rainfed wheat with 3145 kg ha-1. The results of this survey provide a broad vision of sub-processes of wheat production in irrigated and rainfed systems and specification of the exact amount and time of using inputs into production process which could allow a holistic assessment of Golestan province with respect to environmental, economic and sociological perspectives. This research is part of the Ph.D thesis of the first author at Zabol University. We are grateful to Gorgan University of Agricultural Sciences and Natural Resources (GUASNR) and Zabol University. We are also grateful to Dr. H. Kashiri (Director of Agricultural Extension of Golestan province) and the farmers in our study for their patience and support.