Water Consumption of Sweet Corn and Its Water-saving Irrigation Strategies

【Objective】Cultivation of sweet corn has increased over the past decades in some areas of China, but its demand for water and the associated irrigation strategies are poorly documented. The objective of this paper is to plug this knowledge gap. 【Method】A two-year field experiment designed based on the principle of achieving high yield was conducted. During the experiment we measured the change in soil moisture and meteorological factors, and used them to calculate water requirement, water consumption and crop coefficient (kc) of the crops. These help us to optimize the irrigation strategy for sweet corn production. 【Result】The water requirement, daily water consumption during the growth season of the sweet corn in 2016 and 2017 were 197.7 and 212.9 mm, 3.0 mm/d and 3.1 mm/d respectively. The daily water consumption varied with growth stage, being highest in the tasseling stage and least in the seedling stage. The average crop coefficient in 2016 and 2017 was 0.63 and 0.67, respectively, and the optimal calculation showed that changing irrigations times to four could reduce irrigation water by 31.84% to 33.97% compared to the currently used irrigation strategy. 【Conclusion】Water requirement of the sweet maize was low and its water consumption was similar to normal corn. Appropriate irrigation is essential to safeguarding its production.