Lint yield, lint quality, and economic returns of cotton production under traditional and regulated deficit irrigation schemes in Southwest Texas

The urban water demand in Southwest Texas has grown rapidly in recent years due to steady increases in population. Improved irrigation schemes are needed to support new water-use plans as solutions to the conflict between municipal and agricultural water use. Deficit irrigation is one possible technique for conserving water while maintaining crop yield and/or economic returns. A field experiment was conducted at the Texas AgriLife Research and Extension Center at Uvalde, TX in the summers of 2008 and 2009 to examine the water saving potential of four traditional (T) and two regulated (R) deficit irrigation treatments against a full irrigation treatment. Two deficit irrigation treatments (80T and 70R) were found to be able to maintain lint yield similar to the full irrigation treatment for most cotton varieties tested. Although some differences were observed in lint quality parameters, these differences were not large enough to cause changes in the economic returns to the grower. In addition, a third treatment (50R) was able to maintain economic returns similar to the full irrigation treatment. These results indicate that the regulated deficit irrigation scheme could be further developed to achieve a possible increase in water conservation and economic sustainability for production in this region.