Water use efficiency and yield of sugar beet under conventional

Microirrigation has the potential to minimize water droplet evaporation and wind drift losses associated with sprinkler irrigation, improving the irrigation control by frequent applications, providing the needed nutrients for crops through the system, minimizing deep percolation and improving crop yield. This study was conducted to evaluate sugar beet yield under conventional and alternate tape and furrow irrigation. The sugar beet pp22 was cultivated with 0.3 m row spacing. There were four treatments of tape irrigation (tapes from Iranian and foreign manufacturers) and two treatments of furrow irrigation. In each treatment four rows of sugar beet were grown. Alternate and every row irrigation was applied for both tape and furrow irrigation treatments. The amount of water used, irrigation application efficiency (Ea), water use efficiency (WUE), coefficient of uniformity (CU) of applied water and fertilizer in tape irrigation, white sugar percentage, gross sugar percentage, root yield, white sugar yield, gross sugar yield, the WUE of root yield, and the WUE of white sugar and gross sugar were assessed in a field experiment near the College of Agriculture of Shiraz University. The results showed that the amount of water used in tape irrigation treatments was 50 percent less than furrow irrigation treatments. The average Ea of tape and furrow irrigation was 90.7% and 52%, respectively. The CU of Iranian and foreign tape was 97% and 98%, while the CU of applied fertilizer was 97.5% and 94.5%, respectively. The highest white sugar percentage was found in alternate tape irrigation; however, the highest gross sugar percentage belonged to alternate furrow irrigation treatment. The highest root yield was obtained from Iranian tape irrigation treatment of all rows. The highest gross sugar yield was found in furrow irrigation; however, there was no significant difference among all treatments for white sugar yield. The amount of water used in tape irrigation was 58% of furrow irrigation, while the highest WUE of root yield, white sugar yield and gross sugar yield was found in the alternate tape irrigation. These values were the least for conventional furrow irrigation.