Abstract
Furrow irrigation is widely used because of its low cost and energy requirement, but less efficient compared with the pressurized irrigation systems. Management of water resources in Vertisols is more problematic compared to other soil groups. This soil is representing a vast crop production resource and account for a considerable portion of the region under study. The preferential flow has a profound effect on the performance furrow irrigation in cracked soils. Accordingly, itis of vital importance to select the most appropriate management practices to improve the performance of surface irrigation in these soils. Accordingly, a series of field experiments were conducted over a cracked soil at a research farm located in the outskirt of Sulaimani city during the summer seasons of 2017 and 2018 with furrow lengths in the range of 30 to 70 m. The main objectives were to improve the performance of furrow irrigation and water use efficiency of eggplant by changing furrow shape and length by application different irrigation techniques. The results indicated that irrigation efficiency tended to increase by reducing furrow length, by decreasing available water depletion and by changing the furrow shape. Overall, the applied irrigation treatments can be ranked according to the degree of their effectiveness in term of irrigation performance, eggplant fruit yield and water use efficiency as follows: Surge flow > Fixed furrow irrigation > Alternate furrow irrigation > Cutback > continuous flow.
Highlights
The water scarcity is growing rapidly due to increased demand for water from all water consuming sectors (28)
Howell (11) and Wang et al (38) reported that the use of conventional irrigation methods along with improper irrigation management can lead to large water losses in agricultural fields
The result of this study indicated that initial soil moisture content has a significant effect on the rate of water infiltration in cracked soils, and a major part of irrigation water is spent for filling the cracks in the beginning of infiltration process
Summary
The water scarcity is growing rapidly due to increased demand for water from all water consuming sectors (28). Alternate furrow irrigation as a management strategy can reduce water losses in form of deep percolation and runoff by facilitating lateral water movement (31). This irrigation technique has potential to retain fertilizer in the root zone for plant uptake, giving rise to lower chemical pollution of ground water by nitrate and phosphorus in water bodies (7). This system aims at minimal water losses trade-off between deep percolation and tail water runoff (23) According to this concept, initially, a large non-erodible steam size is applied to reach the furrow far end during a short time, and the stream size is reduced to be close to the soil basic infiltration rate (37). The coefficient of linear extensibility is in the range of 10 -12%
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