Influence Of Different Drip Irrigation Methods And Irrigation Levels On Sweet Sorghum

The objective of the present study was to determine the effects of different drip irrigation methods (SDI: surface drip irrigation, SSDI: subsurface drip irrigation) of sweet sorghum (Sorghum bicolor cv. Erdurmus) variety to water stress under five different irrigation levels (I-100: full irrigation with no water stress, and I-75: slight, I-50: mild, I-25: severe water stress and Io: rainfed with no irrigation). The results showed that different irrigation levels applied has statistically significant effect on yield components such as plant height, leaf number, plant weight, forage and bioethanol yield. In both of the drip irrigation methods, water deficit stress significantly (P <= 0.01) increased brix contents while it decreased bioethanol yield. The maximum forage and bioethanol yield was obtained from SSDI under full irrigation as much as 143.1 t ha(-1) and 3736.1 L ha(-1), respectively. The highest water productivity was observed in I-100 treatment as 73.3 kg m(-3) for SSDI, while the lowest was found in I-0 treatment as 18.4 kg m(-3) for SDI. It was concluded that the SSDI method could be a successful method to improve forage and bioethanol yield productivity for sweet sorghum under full and slight deficit irrigation conditions.