Abstract
Currently, with the shortage of agricultural water resources, research on water‐saving irrigation is of great significance for the improvement of water productivity. In this research, the economic irrigation quotas for summer maize in years with different precipitation levels were determined according to the growth function of summer maize, aiming to maximize the net benefit of water consumption units. Based on the economic irrigation quotas, the irrigation schedule of summer maize was optimized by the AquaCrop model. The results show that in wet years, summer maize does not need irrigation. In normal years, summer maize only needs to be irrigated once at the seedling stage and once at the jointing stage to reach a maximum yield of 7.23 t/ha and a water productivity of 2.25 kg/m 3 , with an irrigation quota of 25 mm and a total irrigation amount of 50 mm. In dry years, summer maize needs to be irrigated once at the seedling stage, jointing stage, and flowering stage, with an irrigation quota of 46.6 mm and a total irrigation amount of 140 mm. Under this condition, the summer maize yield reaches a maximum of 7.20 t/ha, and the water productivity is 1.99 kg/m 3 .