LAUSR

AbstractTwo-year field study was conducted in Peshawar valley of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province Pakistan to evaluate the performance of sugar beet planted on the raised-beds with the application of different levels of irrigation. Results revealed that all the yield and water use efficiency components were significantly affected by the interactive effects of irrigation regimes and raised-bed systems. From the average of 2 years data, it was observed that root yield was maximum (71.73 tons ha−1) when the crop was raised on medium raised-bed under full irrigation. However, highest sugar yield (10.63 tons ha−1) was obtained from the treatment in which the crop was grown on medium raised-bed and received 20% deficit irrigation (DI20). The results also revealed that the interaction of different irrigation regimes and raised-bed furrow irrigated planting methods significantly (at p < 0.05) affected the amount of irrigation water applied. For the same irrigation level, the highest water was applied to conventional ridge-furrow system, followed by wide raised-bed and the least to medium raised-bed. For both cropping seasons, the highest mean root irrigation water use efficiencies with 18.98 and 18.92 kg m−3, and highest mean sugar irrigation water use efficiencies with 3.30 and 3.23 kg m−3 were recorded from treatment that received 60% deficit irrigation (DI60) and crop was grown on furrow irrigated medium raised-bed with two crop rows on each side of the bed. To obtain higher sugar yield and better water use efficiency, it is strongly recommended that the sugar beet growers should raise their crop on medium raised-bed and should apply DI20 instead of full irrigation.