- Authors:
- Haqqani, A. M.
- Munir, M.
- Mann, R. A.
- Source: Pakistan Journal of Agricultural Research
- Volume: 18
- Issue: 1
- Year: 2002
- Summary: Rice-wheat cropping system is the most important one in Pakistan. The system provides food and livelihood for more than 15 million people in the country. The productivity of the system is much lower than the potential yields of both rice and wheat crops. With the traditional methods, rice-wheat system is not a profitable one to many farmers. Hence, Cost of cultivation must be reduced and at the same time, efficiency of resources like irrigation water, fuel, and fertilizers must be improved to make the crop production system more viable and ecofriendly. Resource conserving technology (RCT) must figure highly in this equation, since they play a major role in achieving the above goals. The RCT include laser land leveling, zero-tillage, bed furrow irrigation method and crop residue management. These technologies were evaluated in irrigated areas of Punjab where rice follows wheat. The results showed that paddy yield was not affected by the new methods. Direct seeding of rice crop saved irrigation water by 13% over the conventionally planted crop. Weeds were the major problem indirect seeded crop, which could be eliminated through cultural, mechanical and chemical means. Wheat crop on beds produced the highest yield but cost of production was minimum in the zero-till wheat crop. Planting of wheat on raised beds in making headway in lowlying and poorly drained areas. Thus, resource conserving tillage technology provides a tool for making progress towards improving and sustaining wheat production system, helping with food security and poverty alleviation in Pakistan in the next few decades.
- Authors:
- Source: Wageningen Universiteit. Promotor: Prof. L.F. Vincent, co-promotor(en): Dr. D.H. Murray-Rust. - Wageningen : G.E. van Halsema, 2002.
Source: OAI
- Year: 2002
- Summary: This thesis contains nine major chapters investigating the attempts undertaken over the past 20 years in the North West Frontier Province (NWFP), Pakistan, to develop and introduce modern irrigation water delivery services in large-scale government run irrigation systems. The second chapter presents a historical analysis of the development of the large scale canal irrigation systems in the Indus basin during British colonial time. The analysis focuses on how the concept of protective irrigation was developed and refined over time by the irrigation authorities. The next chapter discusses the era after independence of Pakistan till the start of the modernization programme in NWFP around 1980. It focuses on the changing scenarios of irrigation management and development in the Indus basin, that has resulted from substantial changes in its institutional and political context. Several case studies are presented in the next chapters: design and implementation of a responsive water supply services in the Mardan-SCARP (Salinity Control and Reclamation Project) project (Chapter 4); the adaption of water management strategies in the newly remodelled Lower SWAT canal (Chapter 5); the application of crop-based irrigation operation for the project in Chasma Right Bank Canal (Chapter 6); and the Swabi-SCARP and Pehur High Level Canal (PHLC) projects that foresee new irrigation developments in the Peshawar Vale, making the use of the water share still available to NWFP after the Indus Water Appointment Act (Chapter 7). The next chapter presents an epilogue to the modernization programme, with the institutional reform programme for the irrigation sector in Pakistan, that was initiated in 1994 and finally got underway in 1999/2000. Finally, some general conclusions are drawn in chapter nine on the function of engineering and designed physical systems in the wider system of irrigation water management.
