Assessment of Crop water requirement using FAO CROPWAT 8.0 for Groundnut in South Odisha

Water has a major impact on crop growth, output, and quality and increased production with less water consumption is crucial due to increased demand from domestic and industrial sectors. With evaporative demand-based irrigation scheduling the water consumption gets reduced and improves water productivity. The type of soil, growing season, weather, and crop type affect specific crops' water needs. To compute crop water requirement, irrigation requirement, and its schedule for groundnut cultivated during the rabi season in south Odisha, India, the FAO CROPWAT 8 program was used, with the meteorological data of Centurion University, Paralakhemundi, and NASA power. The water requirement for groundnut was 362.1 mm, the irrigation requirement for groundnut crops was 323.7 mm, and crop evapotranspiration (ETc) was 373.4 mm during rabi season. At 50% critical depletion of soil moisture and soil replenishment to field capacity, the yield did not decrease. These results indicate that irrigation schedules can be practiced for different regions' crops without experimental results by estimating crop water requirements and irrigation schedules obtained through the FAO CROPWAT 8 model.