Use of soil water content in deciding the sowing time in dry land agriculture

José Dimas López Martínez*, Cirilo Vázquez Vazquez, Enrique Salazar Sosa , Enrique-Salazar Melendez, Rafael Zúñiga Tarango and Héctor Idilio Trejo Escareño

División de Estudios de Postgrado, Facultad de Agricultura y Zootecnia-Universidad Juárez del Estado de-Durango, Apartado Postal 142, CP 35000. Gómez Palacio, Durango, México.

*Corresponding author. E-mail: enmageel1@yahoo.es. Tel: 01 871 727 96 26.

Accepted 8 July, 2010

 Abstract

Precipitation is the most important issue under dry land condition agriculture. However, soil water amount is the best parameter to decide the hydraulic stress level in crops. The main objective of this study was to determine a statistical model in deciding whether to plant or not under dry land condition. This model used soil water amount condition as the most important parameter. Two experiments were established in the summer of 2006 and 2007, respectively at the Francisco Villa community, in the estate of Durango, México. The two corn genotypes used in this experiment were White Hualahuises and H-412, soil water amounts were measured since the beginning in each plot. Also, grain yields were weighed for statistical analysis, which consisted of 2*2 contingency tables and X² interaction usage to estimate soil water amount for planting. The results indicated that the optimum soil water range for planting varies from 6.5 to 8.2 cm, for Blanco Hualahuises and 6.5 to 8.0 cm for H-412, in 2006; and 6.5 to 7.7 cm for Blanco Hualahuises in 2007. The main conclusion is that the X² interaction is a good tool to determine soil water ranges at the beginning of corn planting. Thus, farmer can decide whether to plant or not.

Key words: Genotypes, X² interaction, grain yield.