For efficient irrigation and higher yields precise laser land development is often advocated as the most effective water saving method. Land levelling, having impact on moisture storage and distribution conditions in the field both spatially and temporally, affects crop growth and yields. Hence, the field experiments were conducted in the research farm of the University of Agricultural Sciences (UAS) Raichur to investigate the effect of laserland levelling on the performance of groundnut (Arachis hypogaea L.) and also the effect of laser levelling on spatial and temporal variability of topographic conditions, irrigation and water use efficiencies. The treatments comprised levelling methods viz., L1- laser land levelling with 0.2% slope, L2-laser land levelling with 0.4% slope, L3-traditional land levelling method and L4- no levelling and irrigation methods viz., I1- border strip irrigation and I2-check basin irrigation. The soil moisture studies after 24 hours of a rainfall event indicated that both the average soil moisture in soil depth (0-15 cm) and uniformity coefficient (Cu) of its distribution were maximum (45.14 and 94.84 and 41.18 and 93.49 per cent) in 0.2 and 0.4 % slope laser levelled plots (L1 and L2), respectively. Traditional levelling method (L3) recorded lower values of 35.19 and 83.33 %, while the same were least (25.10 and 77.11 %) in unlevelled control plot (L4). The standard deviation indicating spatial variability of soil moisture was minimum (2.79 and 3.46 %) with more uniform and higher moisture conservation in laser levelled plots followed by 7.22 % in traditional levelled plot and the maximum of 8.89 per cent in unlevelled plot. The trend was same even after 7 days of rainfall events in respect of soil moisture storage, depletion and uniformity coefficient. The average uniformity coefficient of laser levelled plots was the highest (89.77%) followed by L3 (77.67%) and the least in case of L4 (73.15%). The results also showed that laser levelling could decrease the water application rates considerably when compared to traditional and no levelling. The highest per cent water saving was observed in laser levelled fields with 0.4 % slope (28.03 and 40.50%) followed by laser levelled fields with 0.2 % slope (23.61 and 36.89%) over traditional and unlevelled fields respectively. Mean of both the laser land levelling cases registered 63.68 % more water productivity over traditional leveling establishing the fact that laser levelling saves valuable water with the highest water productivity of groundnut production.

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