Introduction: In current situation when world is facing massive population, producing enough food and adequate income for people is a big challenge specifically for governors. This challenge gets even harder in recent decades, due to global population growth which was projected to increase to 7.8 billion in 2025.Agriculture as the only industry that has ability to produce food is consuming 90 percent of fresh WATER globally.Despite of increasing for food demand, appropriate agricultural land and fresh WATER resources are restricted. To solve this problem, one is to increase WATER productivity which can be obtain by irrigation. …

Infrared thermometer is one of the proper irrigation scheduling tools that can be used in fields or gardens with different soil texture. In order to schedule irrigation of maize (SC704) in Urmia climate conditions, using a difference in temperature of canopy cover of plant and air in 2017, a research was conducted at research farm of Urmia University college of agriculture under drip irrigation. In this research, the effects of various irrigation WATER treatments were investigated. The experimental design was carried out in a randomized complete block design with three levels of irrigation I1, I2 and I3 of 50, 75 and 100 percent of WATER requirement in three replications, respectively. Based on the results, the average values of CWSI for maize during the growth period for treatments of I1, I2 and I3 were calculated to be 0. 53, 0. 44 and 0. 28, respectively. The results showed that the CWSI index increased with decreasing WATER requirement. The threshold of WATER stress index (0. 28) of I3 treatment (no stress treatment) was the basis for irrigation scheduling. Then, some relationships were presented to determine the irrigation time of maize, using the CWSI index in Urmia climate for July, August and September as  c a  c T  T  3. 4617  0. 1553(AVPD),  c a  c T  T  2. 5536  0. 0556(AVPD) and  c a  c T  T  7. 2806  0. 1572(AVPD) respectively.

An infrared thermometer can become a readily usable tool for CROP agricultural WATER management since it allows a quick determination of canopy surface temperature that, as linked to transpiration, can give an idea of CROP WATER status. This study aimed to calculate the CROP WATER stress index (CWSI) of Quinoa. This study was conducted in a completely randomized design with four irrigation levels of 100 (T1), 75 (T2), 50 (T3), and 25 (T4) % of CROP WATER requirements in three replications, and experimental treatments and measurements were mainly carried out during Quinoa growing season at 2017-2018 years. The results revealed that the highest of leaf, stem, root, inflorescence dry weights, and biomass by 11. 3, 8. 8, 2. 8, 16. 8, and 39. 7 g were in the T1 treatment. Using the T2, T3, and T4 compared with T1 were decreased grain yield (by 37. 6, 52. 5, and 64. 8%), harvest index (by 30. 4, 34. 5, and 30. 7%), and Biomass (by 16. 4, 29. 7, and 51. 1%). But, these treatments caused to WUE increase (by 19. 4, 36. 6, and 77. 4%) compared with T1. CWSI correlated significantly (P < 0. 01) and negatively with grain yield and biomass. Also, the results showed that the highest and lowest quinoa grain yield at average CWSI values of almost 0. 05 and 0. 61. Therefore, to achieve the highest grain yield in irrigation, the quinoa CROP should be irrigated at 0. 05 of the CWSI. The lowest CWSI values were observed in T1(by 0. 04) and the highest in T4 (by 0. 72). In this study, the average CWSI was calculated in the days before irrigation in T1, T2, T3, and T4 treatments, and its values were 0. 05, 0. 19, 0. 48, and 0. 72, respectively. The results also revealed that with CROP WATER requirement change from 100 to 75 percent, the CWSI was about 3. 8 times higher. Accordingly, the CWSI can be used to plan irrigation. The best irrigation time is based on T1 treatment when (Tc-Ta)a=2. 41-0. 21 VPD (5≤, VPD≤, 20).

Currently, the area of agricultural land under conservation practices in the world exceeds 180 million hectares, one of the main advantages of which is improvement in CROP WATER productivity (CWP). An investigation in soybean cultivation in a farm with different level of management of residues was carried out in a randomized complete block design with split plot design in 2010 and 2011 at Gorgan Agriculture Research Station. Main treatment was residue management at three levels: R1: burning of residue, R2: retaining 50% of residues, and R3: maintaining 100% of residues; the secondry treatment was tillage practises at three levels: T1: conventional tillage (plowing + disk + row CROP planter), T2: minimum tillage (stubble cultivator + row CROP planter) and T3: no tillage (sowing with no till planter). The best results obtained from R2 and T3: 42. 7% and 17. 4% increase in yield respectively, comparing R1 and T1. The highest and lowest of WATER consumption level were found 3950 m3 ha-1 and 2690 m3 ha-1 in R1 and R3 respectively. The maximum and minimum CWP were found in R2 and R1 treatments with 1. 13 kg m-3and 0. 55 kg m-3 respectively. Sowing with no tillage system in irrigated conditions improved CWP by 15. 3% compared to the conventional method.

Wheat is one of the most strategic agricultural CROPs across the word and its production plays a significant role in human nutrition. WATER resources scarcity and sequential droughts events in Iran are two challenging issues in providing WATER for strategic CROPs such as wheat. In the other hands, large amount of wheat is annually imported to the country which needs more attention to wheat virtual WATER and its economy. The objectives of this study were to determine the amount of green and blue virtual WATER of wheat, irrigation WATER price and virtual WATER flow in Iran and in particular in Fars province for ten consecutive years. Consequently, the cultivated areas, CROP production and precipitation data were collected for the period of 2000 to 2010. The potential evapotranspiration of wheat for every province was obtained using NETWAT package. Calculating the actual evapotranspiration with FAO CROP WATER production function, the effective rainfall as well as the blue and green virtual WATER and irrigation WATER price were determined. Results indicated that changing the land use from dry to irrigated farming and mismanagement of WATER and soil resources as well as disregarding the climate have increased the irrigated area, virtual blue WATER and costs being followed by decreasing dry farming cultivation area, virtual green WATER and CROP yield in Fars province. Although the irrigated areas were increased in last two years in the country scale, the irrigated yield was reduced which increased virtual blue WATER and costs. There exists no scientific, economic, environmental and practical justification for such consequences and the costs which imposed on the government and people are not returnable.

The relationship between canopy temperature and soil moisture is particularly important because of using canopy temperature as an indicator of CROP WATER stress. A field experiment was conducted to calculate CROP WATER stress index (CWSI) of two canola cultivars including RGS and Sarigol at College of Agriculture and Natural Resources of Darab, Shiraz University, Iran during 2013-2014 growing season. Irrigation regimes consisted of well WATERed [Irrigation equal to 100% field capacity (FC)], light drought (75% FC), moderate drought (50% FC), and severe drought (25% FC) stresses which were arranged in a randomized complete block design (RCBD) with three replications. In RGS and Sarigol, CWSI values showed an increasing trend from March (0. 066 and 0. 093 in well WATERed) to June (0. 711 and 0. 821 in severe drought) respectively, as a result of higher vapor pressure deficit (VPD) and increase in canopy-air temperature differences (Tc-Ta). In both cultivars, when the air temperature increased from March to June, Tc-Ta increased. The highest monthly average value of CWSI for all treatments was obtained in June. By increasing the drought stress, the color grading score decreased from 6 to 2 sharply in May and June. An acceptable color quality (6-5) was sustained in May, under light drought condition. Also, a negative relationship was observed between CWSI with color quality (R2=0. 94**) and grain yield (R2=0. 97**). It could be concluded that in semi-arid areas, light drought is the best option for canola production while mean seasonal CWSI being ranged about 0. 198 to 0. 294 without any loss in visual color quality of canola.

Objectives: After wheat, rice has the most important role in human nutrition. Despite the vital importance of its cultivation, high WATER consumption and WATER shortage crisis, the sustainability of the cultivation of this grain has faced many problems. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to investigate the WATER footprint and WATER use efficiency of rice among the provinces in order to move towards CROP sustainability. Methods & Materials: In this study, WATER footprint index was used to calculate WATER use efficiency in rice production. For this purpose, first the WATER footprint components for the provinces of the country were calculated and then the WATER use efficiency was calculated. Results: The results of calculating WATER footprint showed that the lowest WATER footprint is related to Mazandaran and Gilan provinces and the highest WATER footprint is related to South Khorasan and Sistan & Baluchestan provinces. Also, the highest and lowest amount of green WATER footprint is related to Gilan and South Khorasan province, respectively. The results of WATER use efficiency calculation showed that Mazandaran (0. 511) and Gilan (0. 422) had the highest efficiency and South Khorasan (0. 135) and Sistan & Baluchestan (0. 171) had the lowest efficiency. Conclusion: By comparing the WATER footprint components among the provinces of the country, it is cleared that the ratio of blue, green and grey WATER footprint in total WATER footprint is 45-53%, 6-25% and 0-15%, respectively. Also, the total WATER footprint of the country was obtained in the range of 1958 and 2758 m3 per ton.

The aim of this study was to assess the CROP WATER stress index (CWSI), derived from leaf temperature using infrared thermometer measurements, to investigate the WATER stress status and irrigation timing of olive trees. Fpr this purpose a regression function was determined between CROP WATER stress index and relative WATER content of leaf (RWC) and soil WATER content (SWC). The experimental treatments involved two olive cultivars (Koroneiki and T2) and four WATER regimes (irrigation of 100, 85, 70 and 55% of CROP WATER requirement). The results showed that the non-WATER stressed baseline is varied throughout the study period as well as during the day. The daily variations of non-WATER stressed baseline were mainly due to variations in the intercept of the non-WATER stressed baseline that can be explained by variations in zenith solar angle. After investigating the relationship between vapor pressure deficit (VPD) and the difference between CROP and air temperature (𝑇 𝑐 − 𝑇 𝑎 ), the equation of Tc-Ta =-0. 45 VPD+1. 06, r2 = 0. 99 was determined for the non-WATER stressed baseline of the olive trees at 12: 30 pm. CROP WATER stress index of olive trees increased significantly in deficit irrigation regims compared with control trees. CROP WATER stress index was significantly correlated with relative WATER content (Kroneiki: r2=0. 82**, T2: r2=0. 80**) and soil WATER content (Kroneiki: r2=0. 66**, 𝑇 2: r2=0. 69**). Therefore, the CROP WATER stress index is a good indicator of the WATER stress status of the Koroneiki and T2 olive trees.