Pulses Cereals Water requirement Agronomy Agriculture

1. 1
Reasons of less water requirement in
pulses crops than cereal crops
AGRN 723 : Agronomy of Major Cereals and Pulses
SUBMITTED TO:
Dr. Vikram Singh
Associate Professor
Department of Agronomy
NAI,SHUATS
SUBMITTED BY:
Suman Kumar Dey
Id. No: 19MSAGRO070
Department of Agronomy
M.Sc. Ag.(Agronomy)
II semester

2. 2 CONNTS
1. Introduction
2. Water requirement of cereals
and pulses
3. On demand side, water
requirement (WR) can be
expressed as follows
4. Reasons of less water
requirement in pulses crops
than cereal crops
5. Reference

3. Introduction
3
 Crop Water Requirement : It is defined as "the depth of water
needed to meet the waterloos through evapotranspiration of a
disease-free crop, growing in large fields under non-restricting
soil conditions including soil water and fertility and achieving
full production potential under the given growing environment
“(FAO Irrigation and Drainage Paper 24,1992).

4. Water requirement of cereals and pulses
4
Narendra et al,
2018

5. On demand side, water requirement (WR)
can be expressed as follows
5
 WR = ET or CU + Application losses + Special needs if any
 Where: ET = Evapotranspiration
CU = Consumptive Use
 Evapotranspiration: It is the combined loss water both from
soil and plant surface through the process of evaporation and
transpiration.
 Consumptive use of water: It the management of various
water resources in such a way that yield of the system over a
period of time exceeds the sum of yields of the system.

6. Reasons of less water requirement in pulses
crops than cereal crops
6
 Pulses have a very slow canopy development than cereals.
As a result loss of water from plant surface is also very
less.
 Due to less loss of water through ET, most of it used in
plant growth even in less supply of water.
 Pulses has better drought tolerant capacity than cereals. So,
pulses can easily be grown in semiarid regions.
 Another reason of less water requirement in pulses is
taproot system of pulses. These taproots have the capacity
to penetrate deeper in to the soil and locate water. They
have the capacity to penetrate up to 150 ft. in search of
water.

7. Cont…
7
 On the other hand cereals have fibrous root system having low
penetration capacity deep into the soil.
 So, in short supply of water cereal plants can not tolerate, need
to supply through irrigation.
 Another reason of high water requirement in cereals is faster
canopy growth , which leads to more evapotranspiration loss.

8. Cont…
8
 Root length density and root surface area possess a definite
relationship with crop phonological stages. It is noticed that
field pea had the greater root length density, larger surface
area, and more root tips than chickpea and lentil before the
late-flowering stage, however, from late-flowering to
maturity.
• Further studies showed that
rooting depth, extent and timing
of root growth played a major role
in the adaptation of chickpea to
terminal drought stress (Serraj et
al., 2004).

9. Cont…
9
 Water stress is the major constraint in all pulse growing
regions of India, particularly in rainfed farming systems
under arid.
 So,last 2 factors played a major role in pulses to maintain
their growth in less water situation, as they able to uptake
water from deeper soil layer.

10. Reference
10
Adhikary P.P.,Sahoo DC,Naik GB and Dash B. Prioritization
of traditional tribal field crops based on RWUE,2015.
Central Soil and Water Conservation Research and
Training Institute , 14(1):88-95
Serraj, R., Krishnamurthy, L., Kashiwagi, .J., Kumar, J.,.
Chandra, S. and Crouch, J.H.,2004. Variation in root
traits of chickpea (Cicer arietinum L.) grown under
terminal drought, Field Crops Research 88:115–127.
WWW.future-of-food/pulses.org
Zhao, C.; Chen, B. Driving force analysis of the agricultural
water footprint in China based on the LMDI
method,2014. Environ. Sci. Technol, 48:12723–12731