The effect of different drip irrigation levels on yield and yield components of seed-coated cotton

Objective: In order to observe the effects of deficit irrigation and seed-coated techniques on yield and some agronomic quality parameters of Carisma cotton cultivar, a field trial was conducted in year 2019 at the Research and Application Farm of the Agriculture Faculty of Aydın Adnan Menderes University. Material and Methods: The trial was designated in randomized complete block design with two factors and three replications. In the study, four different irrigation levels (100, 75, 50 and 25%) and two different seed-coated techniques (delinted seed and Zinc coated with 9.2%) were investigated. In the trials, irrigation water was applied to cotton cultivars using drip irrigation method as 100%, 75%, 50% and 25% of evaporation from Class A Pan corresponding to 8-day irrigation frequencies. First irrigation was applied when ~40% of available soil moisture was consumed in the 1.20-m effective root zone. Results: The applications of water significantly affected seed cotton yield, various agronomic and cotton fibre quality parameters. The average seasonal water use varied between 254,9 and 635,3 mm according to seed-coated applications. The average seed cotton yield varied from 390,0-587,2 kg/da. The highest average seed cotton yield was obtained from D100 (100%) treatment as averaging 587,2 kg/da. It was determined delinted seed application performed higher yields than Zinc coated applications. Average water use efficiency (WUE) values varied between 0.89-1.55 kg/m3 . Yield response factor (ky) was found to be 0.48 for Zinc coated and 0.53 for delinted seed applications. Conclusion: It may be concluded that the treatment which gave the best performance was treatment D100 (delinted seed, 100%) when the water was abundant. In the case of water scarcity, D2 (delinted seed), 75%) treatment resulted in reasonable yield, WUE and fibre quality. Key Words: Aydın, cotton, drip irrigation, seed coated technique, yield response factor