Forecasting of Long-term Sugar Beet Water Requirement in the Middle Anatolia, Turkey

Sevim Seda Yamaç
2020 Alınteri Zirai Bilimleri Dergisi  
A B S T R A C T Turkey's highest sugar beet (Beta vulgaris L.) cultivation area is the Konya basin where is located in the Middle Anatolia region. Therefore, sugar beet has socio-economic importance in this region. However, the area faces water scarcity due to less amount of precipitation and high evapotranspiration. Moreover, irrigation is a prerequisite for sugar beet cultivation. Therefore, irrigation management is a vital topic for the area. The Food and Agricultural Organization of the
more » ... ed Nations Penman-Monteith (FAO 56 PM) equation for estimating reference evapotranspiration (ETo) requires various meteorological data. Unfortunately, it is not possible to ease to reach all these input data. Hence, FAO56 proposes another method called Hargreaves -Samani (HS). In this study, due to limited meteorological data, the HS method is used for estimating ETo in the Konya basin. For this area, there is a big ambiguity about crop evapotranspiration (ETc) and the net irrigation requirement (NIR) for sugar beet crop. This study estimates long-term sugar beet evapotranspiration and net irrigation requirement to give a better idea for sugar beet irrigation management in the Konya basin. Results show that long-term annual sugar beet ETc reaches between 657 mm and 917 mm in the growing season. NIR ranges from 614 mm to 886 mm in the aforesaid basin. growth period (Dunham, 1993; Hills et al., 1990) . The biggest problem in the basin is water loss due to high evapotranspiration. Another problem is that the basin faces water shortage due to a lack of water resources and a low amount of precipitation. Thus, the appropriate management of irrigation becomes inevitable for the crop growth -yield as well as the preservation of water resources. As a result, water becomes a limiting factor in terms of crop development and production in the region. Reference evapotranspiration (ETo) plays a key role parameter for agricultural and hydrological studies as well as climatological. It is important to estimate accurate results for irrigation scheduling, irrigation and drainage design, crop Alinteri J. of Agr. Sci. (2020) 35(2): 7-13
doi:10.47059/alinteri/v35i2/ajas20068 fatcat:t6oupnizszgx5j6vtv3unn5hti