Orchard Level Assessment of Irrigation Performance and Water Productivity of an Irrigation Community in Eastern Spain

José María Cámara-Zapata,Carmen Rocamora,Miguel Mora,Bernat Roig-Merino,Ricardo Abadía-Sánchez,Herminia Puerto,Ricardo Suay

doi:10.3390/agronomy11091829

José María Cámara-Zapata, Carmen Rocamora + Show 5 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.3390/agronomy11091829

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Abstract

Over the last three decades, a great investment effort has been made in the modernization of irrigation in the Valencian Community (Spain). The initial change from distribution networks to pressurized ones and the shift towards drip irrigation systems was followed by improvements in irrigation scheduling, based on agrometeorological data, soil water content sensors, and remote sensing. These improvements are considered adequate for increasing irrigation water use efficiency, but it is difficult to find systematic measurements to assess its impacts on irrigation adequacy along with irrigation productivity in fruit orchards. This work presents the results of a four year assessment of irrigation water and energy use efficiency along with water productivity of a recently established irrigation community in the province of Valencia (Spain). The study was carried out at the orchard level and focused on two fruit crops: persimmon and peach trees. Six irrigation performance indicators, relative water supply (RWS), relative irrigation supply (RIS), yield performance (Yp), global water productivity (WPoverall), output per unit irrigation water (OUI), and the percent of nitrogen fertilization obtained by irrigation water, were defined and calculated for years 2017 to 2020 in 104 persimmon and peach orchards. The results showed that most of the farmers irrigated below the crop water requirements, showing RWS and RIS values less than 1, and there was great variability among farmers, especially in WPoverall and OUI indicators.

Highlights

Irrigation has been the keystone of agricultural production and rural development in Spain
The modernization of irrigation schemes in Spain [2], and in the Valencia region [3], has entailed changing from open channels networks for surface irrigation to pressurized pipes networks and drip irrigation systems. This modernization has allowed the reduction in irrigation water use [4,5] and improved the control of irrigation application by farmers [2,5] aided by irrigation management and information systems at the national level [6] and at the Valencian Community regional level [7]
The highest values for %N are 35% and 32% for persimmon and peach, respectively. These values indicate N contributions of the irrigation water lower than the crop N requirements, so in the actual conditions, no pollution problems associated with nitrate leaching are to be expected due to both the low concentrations in the irrigation water and the low irrigation depths provided to the crops

Summary

Introduction

Irrigation has been the keystone of agricultural production and rural development in Spain. The modernization of irrigation schemes in Spain [2], and in the Valencia region [3], has entailed changing from open channels networks for surface irrigation to pressurized pipes networks and drip irrigation systems. This modernization has allowed the reduction in irrigation water use [4,5] and improved the control of irrigation application by farmers [2,5] aided by irrigation management and information systems at the national level [6] and at the Valencian Community regional level [7]. Most of the research focused on the hydraulic management of large irrigated areas [20,21,22,23,24] and medium or small irrigation schemes [25,26,27,28,29,30,31]

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