Produced by Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada in cooperation with Saskatchewan Ministry of Agriculture and Irrigation Crop Diversification Corporation, the Irrigation Scheduling Manual is a must for irrigators.
Irrigation scheduling, or irrigation water management, ensures that water is consistently available to the plant and that it is applied according to crop requirements. Proper irrigation scheduling will improve profitability and water use efficiency by:
- maximizing crop yield and quality;
- decreasing water lost through deep percolation and runoff; and
- optimizing pumping costs.
Your soil is an important factor in irrigation scheduling. The size of mineral, relative proportions of sand, silt, and clay in a given soil are described by classes of soil texture, and affect optimal scheduling requirements for your crop.