Enhancing wheat yield through strategic irrigation management

Abstract

To assess the irrigation strategies, an experiment was conducted with three wheat varieties viz. BARI Gom-19, BARI Gom-21, and BARI Gom-24 and four levels of irrigation viz.  no irrigation (control), one irrigation at the crown root initiation (CRI) stage [17 days after sowing (DAS)], two irrigations at CRI (17 DAS) and the booting stage (52 DAS), and three irrigations at CRI (17 DAS), the booting stage (52 DAS), and the heading stage (67 DAS). Variety, irrigation and their association revealed notable impact on the yield of wheat. Within the three varieties tested, BARI Gom-24 demonstrated the highest performance, producing the greatest total tillers/hill (4.43), effective tillers/hill (3.75), grains/spike (40.55), 1000-grain weight (53.93 g), and grain yield (4.41 t/ha). Regarding irrigation, the best results were achieved with three irrigation applications, resulting in the tallest plants (96.22 cm), the highest total tillers/hill (4.79), effective tillers/hill (4.17), grains/spike (44.36), 1000-grain weight (55.38 g), and grain yield (4.35 t/ha). When combining variety and irrigation, BARI Gom-24 with three irrigations produced the tallest plants (99.13 cm), the highest total tillers/hill (4.93), effective tillers/hill (4.33), grains/spike (46.39), 1000-grain weight (55.80 g), and grain yield (4.41 t/ha). All these parameters showed significantly lower performance under no-irrigation conditions. The findings suggest that providing thrice irrigations at the CRI, booting, and heading stages is the optimal strategy for maximizing wheat yield with BARI Gom-24