Water availability is becoming a critical issue in Ethiopia so that preferable irrigation technologies need to be developed and water productivity of irrigated crops through water management is a vital option in water shortage areas. Hence, the objective of the study was to improve potato tuber production through the application of different irrigation system and deficit irrigation application under highland climatic condition. Field experiment was carried out at farmer field of Oda Sirba scheme for three consecutive years with three furrow irrigation system and one deficit irrigation 80% Evapotranspiration of crop (ETc )and control irrigation 100% ETc replicated three times in a split plot design. Obtained results revealed that, the highest seasonal water requirement value of 497.8 mm was at Conventional furrow irrigation (CFI) with full irrigation application while, the lowest value of 199.2 mm was by Alternative furrow irrigation (AFI) with 80% ETc. The analysis of variance indicated that there was significant (P ? 0.05) difference obtained for yield and water use efficiency (WUE) of potato tuber. The highest yield of 36.12 t ha-1 was obtained from control treatment with CFI while FFI at deficit application had the lowest yield of 26.3 t ha-1. The nearest yield of 34.22 t ha-1 was obtained by AFI method with full irrigation application. Higher WUE was observed at AFI method at a control treatment and higher than at 80% ETc but there is no significant variation between them. Applied water in AFI was reduced by 50%. AFI at full irrigation application appears to be a hopeful alternative technology with negligible reduction in yield.

Keywords: Water level, alternate furrow irrigation, conventional furrow irrigation, fixed furrow irrigation, Water use efficiency