Abstract
Water scarcity is one of the leading crop limiting factor in the modern world of farming. Improving water use efficiency is one of the most serious challenge for agricultural scientists and water management experts. To evaluate the influence of sowing methods and mulch on wheat water productivity under deficit irrigation, experiments were conducted over a period of two years (2011-2012 and 2013-2013) at Research Farm of the University of Agriculture Peshawar, Pakistan. The experiments were laid out in randomized complete block design with split-split plot arrangement having three factors and replicated four times. The experiments consisted of three factors such as irrigation deficit (full irrigation, 20, 40 and 60% irrigation), sowing methods (raised bed and flat bed) and mulching (mulched and non-mulched). It was found that sowing methods, mulching and deficit irrigation had significantly affected yield and yield components of wheat. Regarding sowing methods, raised bed cultivation resulted in higher number of grains spike(1), thousand grain weight, grain yield, biological yield and harvest index as compared to traditional flat bed sowing. Likewise, application of maize stover as a surface mulch enhanced wheat yield. In case of irrigation deficit, both full irrigation and 20% deficit irrigation resulted increase in thousand grain weight, grain spike(-1), biological and grain yield harvest index and water productivity. It can be concluded that raise bed cultivation, mulching and 20% deficit irrigation improved wheat yield and yield components under the semi-arid environmental.