WATER RESOURCES ENGG.

CET326
Crops and Consumptive Use
L05
23 Jan 2021, Saturday, 04:00 PM
Duty
• Layout of a canal system

• River
• Barrage or Weir
(Cross Regulator)
• Canal Head Regulator
• Sediment Escape Channel

• Main Canal
• Branch Canal
• Distributary
• Minor
• Outlet
Duty
• Flow Duty
• Direct Irrigation
• Expressed in Hectares/cumec

• Quantity Duty or Storage Duty

• Expressed in hectares/MCM of water available in the reservoir
• Irrigation capacity of reservoir is directly known
Factors affecting Duty
• Type of Crop
• Climate and season
• Useful rainfall
• Type of soil
• Efficiency of cultivation method

• It helps us in designing an efficient canal irrigation system.

Duty for certain crops
• Averaged values
How to improve Duty
• Precautions in field preparation and sowing

• Land should be levelled

• Field should be properly ploughed
• Modern cultivation methods
• Treatment for seepage
• Alkaline soils should be properly leached before sowing
• Manure/fertilizers: to increase water holding capacity of soil
• Rotation of crops
How to improve Duty
• Precautions in handling irrigation supplies

• Source of irrigation: deliver water in required quantity and quality

• Canals: should be lined
• Water courses: preferably be lined
• Free flooding should be avoided
• Subsurface irrigation and Drip irrigation should be preferred
• Irrigation supplies should be economically used
• Proper distribution
• Imparting proper education to farmers
Crop seasons (Indian Scenario)
• Chief crops in India
• Rice (Paddy), Wheat, Sugarcane, Tea, Cotton, Groundnut, Jute, Coffee,
Rubber, etc
• Heavy retention soils required for crops with high water consumption
• Medium or normal soils is suitable for crops like Wheat, cotton, maize,
vegetables, oil seeds.
• Light sandy soil is suitable for gram, fodder (Berseem etc)

• Two principal cropping seasons

• Rabi: 1st October – 31st March
• Wheat, Barley, Gram, Linseed, Mustard, Potatoes, etc
• Kharif: 1st April – 30th September
• Rice, Bajra, Jowar, Maize, Cotton, Tobacco, Groundnut, etc
• Kharif crops usually requires about 2-3 times the quantity of water
required by Rabi crops
Terminology
• Crop Ratio:
Area to be irrigated for Rabi crop is more than Kharif crop.
Kharif-Rabi ratio (usually = 1:2)

• Paleo Irrigation:
Prior to sowing, the land is dry (usually for Rabi).
Soil is moistened so as to help sowing of the crops

• Kor-watering
First water when crop is a few cm high
Maximum single watering followed by other waterings
It must be applied within a fixed limited time => Kor-period
If fails, results in significant loss
Terminology
• Cash Crops
• Crops that can be encashed in market for processing.
• Cannot be consumed directly by cultivators.
• Ex. Jute, Tea, Cotton, Tobacco, Sugarcane.

• Crop Rotation
• Repetition of crops results in reduction of fertility.
• Necessary step to give some rest to soil.
• Either uncultivated and other crop. Wheat Juar Gram
• Cash crop – Fodder crop – soil renovating crop (gram).
• Liguminous crop helps in giving nitrogen to fields.
• Farmers should be educated for this. Cotton Wheat Gram Fallow
• Same crops may result in insects and pests of similar nature

Wheat or
Sugarcane Thadwa Fallow
Gram
Optimum Utilization of Irrigation Water
• For same crop => Yield may vary with amount of water applied

• Optimum irrigation efficiency => getting maximum yield with any

amount of water
• Farmers must be made aquainted
Irrigation Efficiencies
• (Water output) / (water input)
• Losses = Input – Output

• Water Conveyance Efficiency

• Ratio of water conveyed into field from outlet point of channel to water entering
into the channel
• Water Application Efficiency
• Ratio of quantity of water stored in root zone of the crops to the quantity of water
actually delivered into the field
• Water Storage Efficiency
• Ratio of water stored in root zone during irrigation to water needed in the root
zone prior to irrigation
• Water Use Efficiency
• Ratio of water beneficially used (including leaching water) to quantity of water
delivered.
• Water Distribution Efficiency
Consumptive Use and Evapotranspiration
• For a crop, it is the total amount of water used by the plant in
transpiration (metabolism of plants) and evaporation from
adjacent soils and/or plant leaves.

• It may vary from crops, times and places.

• Used to determine the irrigation requirement of crops

(Area Specific)
Effective Rainfall
• Precipitation during growing period of crop that contributes to
meet Evapotranspiration requirement of crop.

• Does not include Precipitation lost to deep percolation below

root zone or surface runoff
Irrigation Requirement
• Consumptive Irrigation Requirement (CIR)
• CIR = Cu – Re

• Net Irrigation requirement (NIR)

• NIR = Cu – Re + Water lost as percolation (for leaching)
Factors affecting Consumptive use
• Temperature
• Sunlight
• Humidity
• Wind movement
Estimation of Consumptive Use
• Blaney Criddle Equation
• Hargreaves method
• Penman’s Equation