Abstract
Knowledge of the soil wetting pattern characteristics of vertical moistube-irrigation is essential for the design of cost-effective and efficient irrigation systems. We conducted laboratory experiments to determine the specific discharge calculation formula and compare the accuracy of HYDRUS-2D simulation. The cumulative infiltrations, wetting pattern distances, and water content distributions predicted with HYDRUS-2D were found to align well with experimental data. The results provide support for using HYDRUS-2D as a tool for investigating and designing moistube-irrigation management practices. Numerical simulations were carried out with HYDRUS-2D to investigate the influence of soil texture, initial water content, pressure head, moistube length, and buried depth on wetting pattern characteristics. There are small differences in the shape of the soil wetting pattern, as well as significant differences in size. The wetting pattern and water content contour are approximately “ellipsoid” around the moistube. Soil texture has a significant effect on the wetting pattern characteristics, the vertical and horizontal wetting front distance, and the wetted soil volume decrease along with the increase of soil clay content. The initial water content, pressure head, and moistube length have great influence on the wetting front distance and the wetted soil volume. Both are positively correlated with the initial water content, pressure head, and length. Moistube buried depth affects the wetting pattern position. The soil wetting pattern decreases synchronously as the buried depth drops.
Highlights
The forest fruit industry is a good choice for achieving economic growth and ecological conservation in arid regions of northwest China [1]
We evaluated the accuracy of HYDRUS-2D simulations of water infiltration and distribution under
We evaluated the accuracy of HYDRUS-2D simulations of water infiltration and distribution under moistube-irrigation of aeolian sand and silt loam soil
Summary
The forest fruit industry is a good choice for achieving economic growth and ecological conservation in arid regions of northwest China [1]. Traditional flood irrigation has a large amount of water and low water use efficiency, which is not conducive to the sustainable development of the ecological economy [4]. Considering the strong surface evaporation and the deep-rootedness characteristics of fruit trees in arid areas, effective irrigation methods are urgently needed to transport the water directly to the root zone soil of the fruit trees, in order to reduce soil evaporation and improve irrigation water use efficiency. Vertical line source moistube-irrigation (VLSMI) is a water-saving irrigation technique suitable for deep-rooted plants. It introduces membrane technology into the irrigation field, uses macromolecular polymer semipermeable membranes to make moistube, and irrigates water through moistube for subsurface irrigation [5,6]. The surface of the moistube contains nano-pores, which are uniformly
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