Journal of Agronomy and Field Innovations

The scarcity of water resources can be addressed through the development of novel methods to optimize irrigation planning and conservation of water used while growing cereal crops. The present study examined the potential of Time Domain Reflectometry (TDR) for monitoring soil moisture in order to adopt accurate irrigation planning for wheat production. Field trials were carried out over two consecutive growing seasons on a semi-arid research farm loamy soil in northern India. The experiment followed a randomized complete block scheme with five irrigation treatments depending on the level of soil moisture depletions (40%, 60%, 80%, 100% available water, and farmers’ practice). TDR sensors positioned at 30, 60, and 90 cm soil depth gave continuous information about soil moisture throughout the growing period. The irrigation schedule based on real-time data obtained from TDR by using threshold values of 70% available water for optimum plant growth resulted in water use reduction by 28% comparing to standard practice employed, Water-use efficiency gained a 31% increase under TDR-based precision irrigation (2.63 kg m−3) compared to farmers’ practice (2.01 kg m−3) while sustaining a decent crop yield of 5.85 Mg ha−1. Periodic moisture measurements indicated an ideal crop response when the soil moisture content remained at its optimum of -0.03 to -0.08 MPa throughout the growing period. Overall, this study showed that TDR-based precision irrigation scheduling is a reliable and scientific technology to secure production of wheat in areas facing water scarcity and can be efficiently implemented in precision agriculture systems.