Tall Fescue Root System Characteristics in Response to Water Stress under Pop-Up Sprinkler Irrigation System

Since the last few decades water crisis, drought and shortage of water resources are the major problems for development of green space, especially planting turf grasses. Deficit irrigation under modern irrigation systems is a special issue of landscape irrigation management. This experiment was conducted to evaluate the effect of water stress on water productivity of tall fescue and its root system characteristics reaction under pop-up sprinkler irrigation system. Experiment was done in a randomized complete block design with three level of water stress ((w1) 100%, (w2) 75% and (W3) 50% water requirement) and three replications. Results showed that there was a significant difference in crop water productivity between W1 and W3 treatment. The highest and the lowest water productivity were observed in W3 and W1, respectively. Root to shoot ratio was increased significantly in 75% of water stress but in terms of 50% water stress this proportion did not show significant difference with the control condition. Reducing the amount of irrigation water had no significant impact on dry matter yield and the volume of root at two different soil depths (0-30 and 30-60). Results of analysis variance of root dry weight indicated significant difference between the treatments at the 5% level of probability. Reduction in irrigation water to 75% of full irrigation requirement increased root dry weight up to 56.75%.