Minimal Volume Irrigation Scheduling for Citrus Cultivation in Warud Tehsil, Maharashtra, India

Citrus reticulate Blanco is most common among Citrus fruits grown in India. It occupies nearly 40% of the total area under Citrus cultivation in India. Citrus industry in India is the third largest fruit industry of the ranking ninth among top orange producing countries contributing 3% of the world's total orange production of the world. Vidarbha region from the Maharashtra state of India is known to the entire world for its awesome quality of Mandarin oranges. This wealth of Central India is now turning to the weakness; entire economy based on orange produce is slowly declining over the past few decades. Owing to the crisis, the suffering farmers are committing suicides. The present investigation is an attempt to find out the root cause of the decline in cultivation and production in terms of quality as well as quantity and as also of devising suitable strategy to increase the yield. For the purpose of the study ten sites have been identified. The most important reasons threatening the orchard production is the irrigation practice that is conventionally adopted by the farmers. The study tries to probe the objectives to determine the soil quality by analysing the water chemistry, the daily water requirement of the soil and planning for the requisite irrigation on the basis of soil condition. An investigation has revealed that, the off beat irrigation leads to the deterioration of the soil quality, as a long term effect. The soil analysis therein showed signs of salt accumulation in the effective root zone and the pH of the soil became basic. Other Physico-chemical parameters analysed were EC, WHC, Infiltration Rate, Soil Texture, Na, K, Ca, Mg, and Organic Matter. Ideally the Citrus crop requires acidic or neutral soil for the optimum performance of the plant. Daily Water Requirement (DWR) depending on the soil features, effective root zone, Readily Available Water (RAW) and rate of evaporation have been determined. The soil with available chemistry, RAW (50-60 mm), DWR (131.32-84.00 lt), the evaporation rate (10–14 mm) was recorded and reported to schedule irrigation.