Effect of different soil moisture regimes on plant growth and water use efficiency of Sunflower: experimental study and modeling

Abstract Background Climate change and increasing demand in non-agricultural sectors profoundly affect the availability quality of water resources for irrigated agriculture. The FAO AquaCrop simulation model provides a sound theoretical framework to investigate crop yield response environmental stress. This has successfully simulated growth as influenced by varying soil moisture environments crops. Integrating models that simulate effects on with targeted experimentation can facilitate development irrigation strategies high procurement improving farm level management use efficiency (WUE) under climatic condition District Hyderabad, Sindh, Pakistan. Results study was based completely randomized block design three treatments including T 1 (30% depletion), 2 (50% depletion) 3 (70% replicates. In order determine requirements desired treatments, gypsum blocks were used computing daily depletion. result shows total volume applied 1, 9689, 5200 2045 m ha −1 , respectively. As result, grain 13.2, 12.1 14.3 t These results advocate less compared 3. gave higher WUE than other treatments. On hand, revealed sunflower yields showed good agreement their measured 15.5 while varied from . suggested more 2. highest relation optimize scarcity. Conclusion Aquacrop could very well predict at experiential region production.