Water Requirements and Irrigation Scheduling of Maize Crop using CROPWAT Model

Increased water demand brought about by rapid population growth has created the necessity to increase food production through the expansion of irrigation and industrial production to meet basic human needs, The primary objective of irrigation is to apply water to maintain crop Evapotranspiration (ET) when precipitation is insufficient. Hess (2005) defined crop water requirements as the total water needed for evapotranspiration, from planting to harvest for a given crop in a specific climate regime, when adequate soil water is maintained by rainfall and/or irrigation so that it does not limit plant growth and crop yield. Irrigation technologies and irrigation scheduling may be adapted for more effective and rational uses of limited water supplies. CWR depend on climatic conditions, crop area and type, soil type, growing seasons and crop production frequencies (FAO, 2009; George et al., 2000). CROPWAT is one of the models that are being extensively used in the field of water management throughout the world which is designed by Smith (1991) of the Food Agricultural Organization (FAO). CROPWAT facilitates the estimation of the crop evapotranspiration, crop water requirements and irrigation schedule with different cropping patterns for irrigation planning (Kuo et al., 2006; Gowda et al., International Journal of Current Microbiology and Applied Sciences ISSN: 2319-7706 Volume 6 Number 11 (2017) pp. 1662-1670 Journal homepage: http://www.ijcmas.com