Water Use and Water Productivity of Dryland Winter Wheat in the High Plains Ecoregion of Wyoming.

Water Use and Water Productivity of Dryland Winter Wheat in the High Plains Ecoregion of Wyoming

Gurpreet Kaur ^a, Tomas Persson^b, Thijs Kelleners^c, Urszula Norton^d and Axel Garcia y Garcia^e

^aGraduate Student, Department of Plant Sciences, University of Wyoming, Laramie, WY-USA

^bResearcher, Bioforsk, Norwegian Institute for Agricultural and Environmental Research, Norway

^cDepartment of Ecosystem Science and Management, University of Wyoming, Laramie, WY-USA

^dDepartment of Plant Sciences, University of Wyoming, laramie, WY-USA

 ^eDepartment of Plant Sciences, University of Wyoming Research and Extension Center, Powell, WY-USA

Abstract

Rising costs of inputs and the uncertainty on rainfall events threaten the economic viability of conventional dryland winter wheat-fallow system in Wyoming. Production practices that decrease cost and increase yield while conserving soil water, such as reduced tillage and organic production practices, may be an alternative to producers. The objectives of this study were to determine the water use and water productivity of conventional, reduced tillage and organic production practices of dryland winter wheat and to study the impact of improved soil water storage on winter wheat yield. A combination of experimental results from field research conducted at the University of Wyoming Sustainable Agricultural Research and Extension Center (SAREC), near Lingle, WY and modeling was used. The experimental data was analyzed using 2 way ANOVA. The non-parametric Kolmogorov-Smirnov procedure was used to determine differences between cumulative distribution functions of soil water content between production practices. Our preliminary results showed that organic production practices tend to be more efficient than conventional and reduced tillage to store water in the soil. Further studies include alternative crops to fallow and their impact on soil moisture for the next wheat cycle.