Energy Coefficient for Irrigated Wheat Production in Iran

Abstract

The data on diesel fuel energy consumption on tillage, planting, cultivation, irrigation, harvesting and grain hauling as well as electricity for pumping water from wells obtained by questioners for four western provinces of Iran. The data was analyzed by SPSS software and then compared with the calculation results for the similar activities. Calculations were run for the worst case situation that is the hardest soil type for tillage, lowest forward speed and field efficiency. The results showed that the least energy consumption for every one of the practices was higher than the calculated figures; in some cases more than triple. The energy used for irrigation was the dominating. More energy was put into the water wells than for the hardest soil tillage.

Statistics showed that the farmers in these provinces used 24.10-38.98 GJha^{-1 to produce one hectare of irrigated wheat compared to 23.67 GJha-1 calculated for the worst case. International data for semi tropical area in India for the drought years from the literatures was cited as 15.289 GJha-1 Experimental energy for every practice was separately analyzed and compared with the calculated figures. Tillage with an average coefficient of 57.38 Lha-1 and planting with an average 34.16 Lha-1 showed no significant differences between the provinces at 5% probability level.}

Energy coefficient for the other activities that is cultivation, irrigation, harvesting and grain hauling did show significant differences between some of the provinces. The average energy consumption for these activities was 1.045, 21.268, 1.406 and 2.99 GJha-1respectively. The worst case calculated values were 0.232, 18.813, 0.680 and 1.748 GJha-1 respectively. The energy coefficient per ton of produced wheat was also obtained.