Water Use Efficiency of Drip Fertigated Sweet Pepper under the Influence of Different Kinds and Levels of Fertilizers

A field experiment was conducted to study the influence of different kinds and levels of fertilizers on water use efficiency of drip fertigated Sweet pepper at the Research Farm of the Department of Soil and Water Engineering, PAU, Ludhiana in the year 2012-2013. In the drip fertigation experiment, two types of fertilizers viz. Water Soluble Fertilizers (specialized fertilizers, WSF) and conventional fertilizers and three doses of NPK fertilizers were applied by drip irrigation. The drip fertigated treatments were T₁ (WSF applied at 80% RDF (recommended dose of fertilizer)), T₂ (WSF applied at 70% RDF), T₃ (WSF applied at 60% RDF), T₄ (Conventional fertilizer applied at 80% RDF), T₅ (Conventional fertilizer applied at 70% RDF) and T₆ (Conventional fertilizer applied at 60% RDF) and an additional control treatment (with furrow irrigation and 100% traditional fertilizer) was used for comparison. The irrigation was applied at 75% ETC. The percentage water saving for drip fertigation treatment was 33.94% over the conventional irrigation. Out of all the treatments, water use efficiency for T₂ treatment was maximum (5.24 q/ha-cm) which was significantly par with T₄ (5.19 q/ha-cm) treatment. The minimum water use efficiency was in conventional method (2.69 q/ha-cm). While, for drip fertigated treatments, the minimum water use efficiency was in T₆ treatment (3.25 q/ha-cm).The statistical analysis showed that the water use efficiency of T₂ and T₄ treatment were significantly superior than all other treatments.