Water utilization in alternative irrigation under wheat-maize intercropping system in oasis areas

A field experiment was carried out to investigate the effect of alternative irrigation on water consumption, yield and water use efficiency (WUE) under wheat-maize intercropping in the oasis region of Shiyang River Basin, Gansu Province. The results indicate that evaporation for alternative irrigated intercropping system (AI) decreases by 44.0 mm compared to conventional irrigated intercropping system (CI). Water consumption under AI also increases by 15.4 mm while yield and WUE are respectively enhanced by 13.92% and 9.21% compared to CI. All these results show that alternative irrigation is an effective and practicable way to improve yield and WUE of wheat-maize intercropping. Although evaporation and water consumption in alternative irrigated intercropping system increase with increasing irrigation quota, overall WUE actually decreases.