Abstract: Improving plant growth and reducing cost justify an automated irrigation will be used. Automated irrigation minimizes the amount of water applied, reduces labours and increases yield. Field experiments were carried out at farm in Sharkia Governorate, Egypt during summer season 2013. The experiments were arranged in strip-plot design with three replicates. The main-plot represented irrigation methods [automated irrigation (M1) & traditional irrigation (M2)]. While, the sup-plot treatments represented irrigation systems [surface (S1) & sub-surface drip irrigation (S2)].

  Results indicated that corn grain yield and yield components increased with using M1 and S1. On the other side, the M2 received the lowest with sub-surface drip irrigation. Grain yield increased from 2.14 to 2.34 Mg/fed by percentage 9.32% by using automated irrigation compared with traditional irrigation. Automated irrigation decreased the amount of water applied by 18.3% compared to the traditional irrigation method. Automated irrigation saved water by 474 m3/fed compared with traditional irrigation, while subsurface drip irrigation system saved water by 100 m3/fed compared with surface drip.

  The higher Water use efficiency of grain yield estimated to 1.11 kg/m3 was obtained under M1, while M2 induced lower value 0.83 kg/m3. The highest values of net return (LE/fed), water productivity (LE/m3), economic efficiency for capital investment (%), and benefit cost ratio were 2413, 1.11, 99.22 and 1.99, respectively, which were achieved with surface drip and automated irrigation, while the lowest values were 1118.7, 0.44, 42.33 and 1.42 which were achieved under sub-surface drip with traditional irrigation.

  So, it can be concluded that automated irrigation with surface drip irrigation produced the highest values of grain yield, Water use efficiency, net return and benefit cost ratio, while produced the lowest values of amount of water applied and total cost.

 

Key words: surface drip, sub-surface drip, automated irrigation, traditional irrigation, net return