WATER

Irrigation and Water Conservation

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The greatest potential for water conservation/savings will be achieved by deficit irrigation strategies - management techniques which limit the total water that a crop receives with great attention to the timing as well as the amount of the applications. This will be supported by better crop selection and plant breeding for drought tolerance. Biotechnology is needed, but we believe that improved management of water offers a much greater possibility of reducing water consumption than biotechnology and breeding, at least in the short term. That said, it will take advanced irrigation technologies to fully implement deficit irrigation strategies. The resulting water savings can range from 10-50%, whereas the potential from genetic approaches alone appears to be of the order of 5-10%. The greatest yield increases from biotechnology will probably be in dry land crops where water is limited and not controllable