Effect of Center Pivot Irrigation System Speed and Tillage Methods on Lucerne (Medicago sativa) Productivity under Dryland Conditions, River Nile State, Sudan

Abstract

The experiment was carried out at the Jordanian Bashair project located south of Eldamar city, River Nile State (longitude 33⁰ 50' Latitude 17⁰ 20'N in an area of 2.25 ha  during two successive  seasons 2018/2019 and 2019/2020 with a view to evaluating the production of alfalfa under three different center pivot system speeds (50%, 70%, and 100%) and three different tillage operations, chisel ploughing with disc harrowing and laser levelling T1, chisel ploughing with disc harrowing followed by traditional levelling T2 and chisel ploughing with traditional levelling T3. The experiment was arranged in a split plot procedure with complete randomized block design replicated three times with the system speeds assigned to the main plots and the tillage operations to the subplots. The results showed that the number of leaves per plant and stem diameter were significantly affected (p≤ 0.05) with no effect on plant density and height. Generally all plant growth parameters were profoundly affected under the lowest system speed of 50% compared to the other two system speeds. On the other hand, different tillage methods showed highly significant effects on all crop growth parameters and in similar trend during both seasons, where treatment T1rankedfirst and T3 came last. With regard to alfalfa yield attributes, the system speeds had highly significant effects (p≤ 0.01) on the fresh and dry weights during both seasons with the effects being more pronounced with decreasing speed. In as far as the tillage methods were concerned, the treatment T1 recorded the highest yield (15.05 ton/ha) as compared to other tillage methods.  Moreover, the water use efficiency was statistically affected by system speeds and tillage methods the highest value was observed under the system speed 50% and tillage method T1.Nevertheless,the interaction between different system speeds and tillage methods showed no significant effects on water use efficiency, growth and yield parameters of alfalfa crop