Soil Water Depletion and Water Use Efficiency of Cereal-Pulse Rotations in Saskatchewan
Date
2022-03-08
Authors
Paquette, Anne
Si, Bing
Schoenau, Jeff
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
ORCID
Type
Conference Presentation
Degree Level
Abstract
It is important to determine the water footprint and water use efficiency of different crops when developing “water smart” rotations. Introducing more drought resistant crops can help reduce soil water depletion and potentially reduce the influence of drought. This presentation covers results of a crop rotation study that started in 2021 with wheat as the first crop. Rooting depth and water use of hard red spring wheat were measured over the growing season of 2021 at sites in the Dark Brown (near Central Butte) and Black soil zones (near Langham) of Saskatchewan. Soil moisture was monitored using Time Domain Reflectometry (TDR) sensors installed to a depth of 135 cm to determine soil water depletion throughout the growing season. The rooting depth and hydrogen and oxygen stable isotope abundance of the crop and soils were taken and applied to a Bayesian mixing model to determine root water uptake patterns. Additionally, the water use efficiency (WUE) and water footprint (WF) were compared at all sites. Results indicated that rooting depths, soil water storage, WUE, and WF varied between the sites relative to soil texture, EC, and soil water availability. The resulting rooting depths of the hard red spring wheat varied between 60-80 cm which is shallower than the 1.0 m rooting depth found in the literature. The site near Langham Saskatchewan had the shallowest rooting depth out of all the selected sites. It is probable that the lack of profile water recharge from the previous season restricted early root growth and rooting depth. Overall, the wheat crops showed declined yields at all the studied sites which coincided with shallow rooting depths, lower WUE, and higher WFs.
Description
Keywords
Water use efficiency, Drought resistance, Wheat
Citation
Degree
Department
Program
Advisor
Committee
Part Of
Soils and Crops Workshop