Vol. 7, Issue 12, Part E (2025)

The study aimed to determine water requirement of sugarcane crop under three different seasons for Western Maharashtra. The nine meteorological stations viz., Dhule, Jalgaon, Niphad, Pune, Rahuri, Solapur, K Digraj, Padegaon, and Kolhapur as each of one district over study area was selected for the analysis. Determination of crop water requirement is carried out for sugarcane crop under three different seasons over study area. The water requirement was calculated for all seasons at selected stations. The water requirement was estimated for 43 years during 1980-2022 for Jalgaon, Dhule, Niphad, Pune, Rahuri and Solapur stations, while 33 years during 1990 - 2022 for Padegaon and Kolhapur station and 28 years during 1995-2022 for Kasbe Digraj station as per the availability of data. The long term average weekly meteorological data was collected from the Indian Meteorological Department (IMD), Pune. Meteorological data were utilized to calculate crop evapotranspiration using Microsoft Excel. The FAO 56 Penman-Monteith method was employed to estimate crop water requirement in conjunction to crop coefficient (Kc) values. The spatial distribution in CWR were interpreted with the inverse distance weighted (IDW) method. The average crop water requirement of sugarcane crop under different seasons was calculated. The spatial variation of average crop water requirement (CWR) of suru sugarcane, pre seasonal sugarcane and adsali sugarcane varies from 1252 to 1856 mm, 1624 to 2305 mm and 1567 to 2883 mm, respectively. Jalgaon station showed higher values of CWR of sugarcane for all stations whereas, lowest values of CWR for suru and pre seasonal sugarcane are shown by Padegaon and Kolhapur stations, respectively, whereas adsali sugarcane it was showed by K. Digraj station.Spatial analysis of CWR is beneficial for planner and policy makers in all sectors of agriculture for planning of suru sugarcane, pre seasonal and adsali sugarcane to identify water requirement zones in Western Maharashtra for optimal resource management and utilization. The determination of regional water requirement for the sugarcane crop prior to the cropping season is helpful to the farmers in the study area for planning the effective utilization of water resources. It will lead to preserve and conserve the resources for the next cropping season.