Track 2-4-1: Water Harvesting, Watershed Management, Water Use Efficiency and Eco-Hydrology
Description
Alfalfa (Medicago sativa) is widely used to establish pasture to sustain animal production because of its high nutritional quality for livestock (Bouton, 2012). Therefore improving quality of alfalfa pasture is the main goal for establishing pasture throughout the world. Irrigation is an important approach for achieving high qualities of alfalfa pasture, however, the scarcity of water threatens the sustainability of world alfalfa production, requiring us to force on using water more efficiently (Liu and Guo, 2013). Alternate furrow irrigation has been proved as a water-saving technique to promote fruit quality of tomatoes and grapevines and the seed quality of cotton (Kirda et al., 2004, Dos Santos et al., 2003, Tang et al., 2005). But these studies only focus on harvesting the seed, fruits and tubers, while neglecting the vegetative mass. In this study, we investigated the effects of alternate furrow irrigation with different irrigation volumes on the quality of alfalfa.
Included in
Effects of Alternate Furrow Irrigation on the Forage Quality of Alfalfa (Medicago sativa)
Alfalfa (Medicago sativa) is widely used to establish pasture to sustain animal production because of its high nutritional quality for livestock (Bouton, 2012). Therefore improving quality of alfalfa pasture is the main goal for establishing pasture throughout the world. Irrigation is an important approach for achieving high qualities of alfalfa pasture, however, the scarcity of water threatens the sustainability of world alfalfa production, requiring us to force on using water more efficiently (Liu and Guo, 2013). Alternate furrow irrigation has been proved as a water-saving technique to promote fruit quality of tomatoes and grapevines and the seed quality of cotton (Kirda et al., 2004, Dos Santos et al., 2003, Tang et al., 2005). But these studies only focus on harvesting the seed, fruits and tubers, while neglecting the vegetative mass. In this study, we investigated the effects of alternate furrow irrigation with different irrigation volumes on the quality of alfalfa.
