Improving water productivity of mango trees under different irrigation water regimes

In Sudan, mango trees (Mangifera indica) are irrigated through conventional basin system and therefore a huge quantity of water is lost in this traditional method. So to minimize these losses, drip irrigation system was designed, managed and followed. The experimental works were conducted at the Farm of AL Zawaia Group during two successive seasons (2017/2018 and 2018/2019) on sandy loam soil with the objective of investigating the effect of irrigation water regimes namely; 50%, 75% and 100% of crop evapotranspiration (ETc) for improving water productivity of mango trees var. Tommy. A split plot design with three replications was used to in which drip irrigation and basin methods were laid in the main plot, while irrigation water regimes were assigned in the subplot. The parameters tested were irrigation systems performance, mango growth parameters, yield (kg/ha) and water productivity (kg/m3). SAS Package was used to analyze the collected data, while the means separation was by the Least Significant Difference (LSD) test. The findings indicated that drip irrigation gave the highest field performance and saved more than 30% of irrigation water as compared to flooded basin method. Moreover irrigation water regime of 75% ETc significantly (P ≤ 0.05) improved the growth parameters of mango trees, yield and water productivity followed by 100% ETc. It is concluded that to enhance crop water productivity, managed drip irrigation system with deficit irrigation 75% ETc should be adopted and followed. Keywords: Drip irrigation, mango, Sudan, water deficit, water productivity