Vol. 12, Issue 6 (2023)

The increasing global demand for food and other agricultural products calls for urgent measures to increase crop production per unit land used and per unit of water applied. The reported study was carried out at the experimental site of Central Research Field of Sam Higginbottom University of Agriculture, Technology and Sciences, Prayagraj, India. Soil moisture content was measured using gravimetric method periodically in 0-15, 15-30, 30-45, 45-60 and 60-75 cm soil profiles. Field experiments were conducted on Potato crop (Kufri Badshah) during 2020-2021 and 2021-2022. The crop was sown in last week of November and first week of December and was harvested in the last week of March spanning 112 days and 109 days during 2020-21 and 2021-22 respectively. Five irrigation treatments were maintained based on the maximum allowable depletion (MAD) of available soil water. The treatments were 15% (T₁), 30% (T₂), 45% (T₃), 60% (T₄) and 75% (T₅) maximum allowable depletion of available soil water. No water stress was maintained at the initial stages of the crop development in order to allow the plants attain a healthy growth. Field experiments revealed that irrigation schedule with 45% maximum allowable depletion of available soil water gives the maximum water use efficiency for Potato crop. It was found that for scheduling of irrigation for Potato crop 0-30 cm soil profile should be considered as most of the water was found to be extracted from this layer by the plant.