Irrigation Pracitices and Solum Barley Test Weight and Yield, 2000

Abstract

Solum is a barley bred for reduced water use that tends to have low test weight. An experiment was conducted at the Maricopa Agricultural Center to determine the effect of the number of irrigations and their timing on test weight and grain yield of Solum barley. Applying an irrigation at planting and a second irrigation at jointing resulted in the lowest test weight (44.4 lbs/bu) and nearly the highest grain yield (4315 lbs/acre) recorded in the test. All other irrigation treatments resulted in acceptable test weights above 48 lbs/bu except for irrigating at planting plus tillering, which resulted in 47.0 lb/bu test weight. Irrigating at planting and then delaying the second irrigation until boot or later resulted in acceptable test weight but decreased grain yield by 9% or more compared to applying the second irrigation at jointing. Grain yields similar to that obtained by applying a second irrigation at jointing was obtained by delaying the second irrigation until boot and applying a third irrigation at milk or soft dough. This experiment will be conducted a second year before conclusions are drawn.