JWSS - Journal of Water and Soil Science

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To increase mechanized cotton planting in areas with saline irrigation water and crust forming soil in Isfahan Province, assessment of seeders in flatland planting method with or without crust breaking is essential. An experiment was conducted at the Kabootarabad Research Station of Isfahan Research Center to compare the performance parameters of planting equipment in a clay loam soil. Four planting equipment treatments using Bazrsazan and John Deere planters and Nordsten drill along with three crust breaking methods, including rolling cultivator, rolling-type crust breaker and no crust breaking, were laid out in a factorial experiment within a randomized complete block design with three replications. Planters’ performance was evaluated by measuring the number of plants and plant spacings in each treatment, and estimation of the mean and standard deviation, multiples index, miss index, quality of feed index, precision, and hill-dropping index. Although the plant spacings, and not the seed spacings, were measured in this experiment, the indices used in this research showed the planters’ performance to be very satisfactory. The suggested hill-dropping index showed the multiple seeds dropping characteristics of the seeders to be better than those of the multiples index regardless of the crust breaking methods. In the non-crust breaking method, the multiple seeds dropping tendency of Bazrsazan planter brought about a reduction in the mean and standard deviation of plant spacings. Crost breaking caused a reduction in plant spacings for all seeders, especially for the drill whose multiple seeds dropping tendency was negligible. The results indicated that the seed metering systems in Bazrsazan and John Deere planters were volumetric rather than single seed metering devices.

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Drought is an extended period of low precipitation which resulted in injuries to consumers of water and reducing their performance, especially in agriculture. Different indices have already been proposed for evaluating drought, based on one of the varieties of meteorological, hydrological and agricultural droughts, but no indices has been identified yet, encompassing all factors. This study has been carried out to assess existing indices for drought monitoring and proposing an integrated index including main factors of drought and is applied to the Zayandehrood river basin as study area, because of its sensitive situation in the central Iran plateau. An integrated index includes various drought factors such as meteorological, hydrological, agricultural, socio - economical and environmental factors. In designing of this integrated index, a combination of static and dynamic layers has been used. Static layers include land use, slope and soil type. Dynamic layers include precipitation, evaporation, temperature, surface water storage, groundwater levels position, and environmental needs. All these layers are analyzed in GIS software and drought zoning maps is prepared. Results showed that based on values of integrated index, water year 1371-72 was a wet year and water year 1378-79 was the most critical, in terms of drought.

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