Does drip irrigation contribute to the economic sustainability of soybean production?

Authors

  • Arianna Toffanin Consorzio di Bonifica Veneto Orientale (CBVO) – Piazza Indipendenza 25, 30027 – San Donà di Piave (VE) https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9879-3149
  • Carmelo Maucieri Department of Agronomy Food Natural resources Animals and Environment — DAFNAE, University of Padova, Agripolis Campus, Viale dell’Università 16, 35020 – Legnaro (PD) https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4004-6612
  • Giampaolo Rossi Consorzio di Bonifica Veneto Orientale (CBVO) – Piazza Indipendenza 25, 30027 – San Donà di Piave (VE)
  • Graziano Paulon Consorzio di Bonifica Veneto Orientale (CBVO) – Piazza Indipendenza 25, 30027 – San Donà di Piave (VE)
  • Samuele Trestini Department of Land, Environment, Agriculture and Forestry — TESAF, University of Padova, Agripolis Campus, Viale dell’Università 16, 35020 – Legnaro (PD) https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9828-8262
  • Maurizio Borin Department of Agronomy Food Natural resources Animals and Environment — DAFNAE, University of Padova, Agripolis Campus, Viale dell’Università 16, 35020 – Legnaro (PD) https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4074-2098

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.36253/ijam-2318

Keywords:

Glycine max L., drip irrigation, economic sustainability, soil organic amendment, cover crop, grain yield

Abstract

A two-year (2020, 2022) field experiment on soybean was conducted in northeaster Italy to evaluate the effect of irrigation (drip irrigation vs. rainfed), soil amendment (compost vs. digestate) and a cover crop (triticale vs. no cover crop) on grain yield and quality. Highly different rainfall amounts (627 mm and 258 mm in 2020 and 2022, respectively) and similar ET0 (578 mm and 581 mm in 2020 and 2022, respectively) were recorded during the growing seasons. Irrigation was managed using the web platform Irriframe suppling 51 mm in 2020 and 157 mm in 2022. Irrigation was the only experimental factor with significant effects on soybean grain yield and quality, except soil amendment on aboveground biomass production. In 2020, drip irrigation had no significant effect on grain yield (4.6 Mg ha-1 on average), while it increased it by 157% in 2022 compared to the rainfed control (1.0 Mg ha-1). The grain protein content was reduced by irrigation (43.2 ± 1.3% and 42.6 ± 0.9% under rainfed and irrigation managements, respectively). No treatment effect was observed on the grain oil content. A positive effect of irrigation was observed on water use efficiency, with values ranging from 0.40 ± 0.19 kg m-3 to 0.71 ± 0.12 kg m-3. The balance of the economic sustainability of drip irrigation was negative in both years: this irrigation method was not sustainable for soybean within the economic framework of the study area at the time. However, the results also confirmed that irrigation is a key agronomic technique to reduce production variability and dryland vulnerability of soybean.

References

Anda, A., Soos, G., Menyhart, L., Kucserka, T., & Simon, B. (2020). Yield features of two soybean varieties under different water supplies and field conditions. Field crops research, 245, 107673.

Beaudoin, C., Joncoux, S., Jasmin, J.F., Berberi, A., McPhee, C., Schillo, R.S., Nguyen, V.M. (2022). A research agenda for evaluating living labs as an open innovation model for environmental and agricultural sustainability. Environmental Challenges, 7, 100505.

Boote, K.J., Jones, J.W., Hoogenboom, G., Pickering, N.B. (1998). The CROPGRO model for grain legumes. In: Tsuji, G.Y., Hoogenboom, G., Thornton, P.K. (eds) Understanding Options for Agricultural Production. Systems Approaches for Sustainable Agricultural Development, vol 7. Springer, Dordrecht.

Brevedan, R. E., & Egli, D. B. (2003). Short periods of water stress during seed filling, leaf senescence, and yield of soybean. Crop Science, 43(6), 2083-2088.

Candoğan, B. N., & Yazgan, S. (2016). Yield and quality response of soybean to full and deficit irrigation at different growth stages under sub-humid climatic conditions. Journal of Agricultural Sciences, 22(2), 129-144.

Chen, G., & Wiatrak, P. (2010). Soybean development and yield are influenced by planting date and environmental conditions in the southeastern coastal plain, United States. Agronomy Journal, 102(6), 1731-1737.

Doorenbos, J., & Kassam, A. H. (1979). Yield response to water. Irrigation and drainage paper, 33, 257.

Ehsan, N., Hoogenboom, G., Qamar, M. K., Wilkerson, C. J., Wajid, S. A., & Aziz, F. (2022). Climate change risk perception and adaptation to climate smart agriculture are required to increase wheat production for food security. Italian Journal of Agronomy, 17(4).

Gajić, B., Kresović, B., Tapanarova, A., Životić, L., & Todorović, M. (2018). Effect of irrigation regime on yield, harvest index and water productivity of soybean grown under different precipitation conditions in a temperate environment. Agricultural water management, 210, 224-231.

Grassini, P., Torrion, J. A., Cassman, K. G., Yang, H. S., & Specht, J. E. (2014). Drivers of spatial and temporal variation in soybean yield and irrigation requirements in the western US Corn Belt. Field Crops Research, 163, 32-46.

ISTAT (2023). http://dati.istat.it/Index.aspx?DataSetCode=DCSP_COLTIVAZIONI

Jumrani, K., & Bhatia, V. S. (2019). Interactive effect of temperature and water stress on physiological and biochemical processes in soybean. Physiology and Molecular Biology of Plants, 25(3), 667-681.

Karges, Bellingrath-Kimura, Watson, Stoddard, Halwani, Reckling, (2022). Agro-economic prospects for expanding soybean production beyond its current northerly limit in Europe. European Journal of Agronomy, 133:126415.

Khor, L. Y., & Feike, T. (2017). Economic sustainability of irrigation practices in arid cotton production. Water Resources and Economics, 20, 40-52.

Konapala, Mishra, Wada, Mann, (2020). Climate change will affect global water availability through compounding changes in seasonal precipitation and evaporation. Nature communications, 11(1):3044.

Kresović, B., Gajić, B., Tapanarova, A., Pejić, B., Dugalić, G., & Sredojević, Z. (2017). Impact of deficit irrigation on yield and chemical properties of soybean seeds in temperate climate. Contemporary Agriculture, 66(1-2), 14-20.

Lamm, F.R. (2002, December). Advantages and disadvantages of subsurface drip irrigation. In International Meeting on Advances in Drip/Micro Irrigation, Puerto de La Cruz, Tenerife, Canary Islands (pp. 1-13).

Lenth, R.V., 2021. Emmeans: Estimated Marginal Means, Aka Least-squares Means. R Package Version 1.5.5-1.

Liu, Zhang, Feng, Tian, (2020). Toward a “green revolution” for soybean. Molecular plant, 13(5):688-697.

Maisiri, N., Senzanje, A., Rockstrom, J., & Twomlow, S. J. (2005). On farm evaluation of the effect of low cost drip irrigation on water and crop productivity compared to conventional surface irrigation system. Physics and Chemistry of the Earth, parts A/B/C, 30(11-16), 783-791.

Mertz-Henning, L. M., Ferreira, L. C., Henning, F. A., Mandarino, J. M., Santos, E. D., Oliveira, M. C., … & Neumaier, N. (2017). Effect of water deficit-induced at vegetative and reproductive stages on protein and oil content in soybean grains. Agronomy, 8(1), 3.

Milly, Dunne, Vecchia, (2005). Global pattern of trends in streamflow and water availability in a changing climate. Nature, 438(7066):347-350.

Möller, M., & Weatherhead, E. K. (2007). Evaluating drip irrigation in commercial tea production in Tanzania. Irrigation and Drainage Systems, 21, 17-34.

Narayanamoorthy, A. (1997). Economic viability of drip irrigation: An empirical analysis from Maharashtra. Indian Journal of Agricultural Economics, 52(4), 728-739.

Oki, Kanae, (2006). Global hydrological cycles and world water resources. science, 313(5790):1068-1072.

Pedersen, P., & Lauer, J. G. (2003). Soybean agronomic response to management systems in the upper Midwest. Agronomy Journal, 95(5), 1146-1151.

R Core Team. (2021). R: A language and environment for statistical computing. R Foundation for Statistical Computing.

Ray, Gerber, MacDonald, West, (2015). Climate variation explains a third of global crop yield variability. Nature Communications, 6(1):5989.

Rotundo, Westgate, (2009). Meta-analysis of environmental effects on soybean seed composition. Field Crops Research, 110(2):147-156.

Shahrokhnia, M. A., & Zare, E. (2022). Technical and economic study of irrigation scheduling devices on corn water productivity in a semi-arid region. Italian Journal of Agrometeorology, (1), 13-22.

Sobko, Stahl, Hahn, Zikeli, Claupein, Gruber, (2020). Environmental effects on soybean (Glycine max (L.) Merr) production in central and South Germany. Agronomy, 10(12):1847.

Todorović, S. Z., Ivanović, S. M., & Bogdanov, N. L. (2021). The influence of extreme weather events on farm economic performance–a case study from Serbia. Italian Journal of Agrometeorology, 2021(1), 51-62.

Tran, A. T. M., Eitzinger, J., & Manschadi, A. M. (2020). Response of maize yield under changing climate and production conditions in Vietnam. Italian Journal of Agrometeorology, (1), 73-84.

Wisser, D., Frolking, S., Douglas, E. M., Fekete, B. M., Vörösmarty, C. J., & Schumann, A. H. (2008). Global irrigation water demand: Variability and uncertainties arising from agricultural and climate data sets. Geophysical Research Letters, 35(24).

Downloads

Published

2024-01-20

How to Cite

Toffanin, A., Maucieri, C., Rossi, G., Paulon, G., Trestini, S., & Borin, M. (2024). Does drip irrigation contribute to the economic sustainability of soybean production?. Italian Journal of Agrometeorology, (2), 21–31. https://doi.org/10.36253/ijam-2318

Issue

No. 2 (2023)

Section

RESEARCH ARTICLES

License

Copyright (c) 2023 Arianna Toffanin, Carmelo Maucieri, Giampaolo Rossi, Graziano Paulon, Samuele Trestini, Maurizio Borin

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Licence and copyright agreement for IJAM

(revised October 2020)

The following licence and copyright agreement is valid for any article published by IJAM.

Author’s certification

By submitting the manuscript, the authors certify the following:

  • They are authorized by their co-authors to enter into these arrangements.
  • The work described has not been published before (except in the form of an abstract or proceedings-type publication – including discussion papers – or as part of a published lecture or thesis); it is not under consideration for publication elsewhere; and its publication has been approved by all the author(s) and by the responsible authorities – tacitly or explicitly – of the institutes where the work was carried out.
  • They have secured the right to reproduce any material that has already been published or copyrighted elsewhere.
  • They agree to the following licence and copyright agreement:

Copyright

  • The copyright of any article is retained by the author(s). More information on the transfer of copyright can be found below.
  • Authors grant our journals a licence to publish the article and identify itself as the original publisher.
  • Authors grant any third party the right to use the article freely under the stipulation that the original authors are given credit and the appropriate citation details are mentioned.
  • The article is distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License. Unless otherwise stated, associated published material is distributed under the same licence.

Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License

Anyone is free to share — to copy, distribute, and transmit the work to remix — to adapt the work under the following conditions:

  • Attribution — The original authors must be given credit.
  • For any reuse or distribution, it must be made clear to others what the licence terms of this work are.
  • Any of these conditions can be waived if the copyright holders give permission.
  • Nothing in this licence impairs or restricts the author’s moral rights. The full legal code of this licence.