Modelling Irrigation Regimes of Different Varieties of Rice with AquaCrop Software

Abstract

The article presents the results of the application of modern information technologies, which allow agricultural producers to precisely control the dynamics of water consumption at the level of irrigation system, farmland and individual elds of rice crop rotations under the conditions of drip irrigation. The use of computer programs en- ables optimization of irrigation regimes and delivers savings in terms of water, energy, technical means and labor resources, contributing to an increase in yields and improvements of their quality, increases in economic e ciency and environmental safety of agriculture on irrigated lands. As a part of SRW “Development and improvement of irrigation regimes of rice and related crops of rice crop rotation on the basis of normalization of irrigation water and determination of the dynamics of evapotranspiration at the eld level”, AquaCrop software was used to model the productivity of rice under conditions of drip irrigation. The results of research on the topic of improvement of techno- logical processes for growing modern varieties of rice in order to enhance seeding and harvesting properties, which were conducted in 2017 at the Institute of Rice NAAS, were used as experimental data. Indicator data, including temperature, wind speed and precipitation in 2017 were obtained from the local weather station, whereas information on the duration of the sunny day, local coordinates etc. was gleaned from Internet resources. AquaCrop models water and nutrient consumption to achieve desired yields and establish response to optimal and resource-saving irrigation of crops with di erent biological parameters, including rice. Components of the cultivation process of di erent rice varieties were established with simulation modeling. Convenience, accuracy and reliability of the developed model for management, modeling and decision-making from the perspective of yield formation of Vicont, Pre- mium and Ukraine-96 rice varieties as well as development of irrigation regimes for e ective agricultural produc- tion were demonstrated. Adaptation of the information provided by AquaCrop on studied rice varieties allowed automatic and su ciently accurate generation of biologically optimal irrigation regimes for Vicont, Premium and Ukraine-96. Yields and water productivity of aforementioned rice varieties were also compared in the experiment, with the highest values for both parameters achieved by Vicont – 9.5 t/ha and 1.29 kg/m3, respectively