FIELD EVALUATION OF AUTOMATED DRIP IRRIGATION SYSTEM

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Date
2014
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ACHARYA N.G. RANGA AGRICULTURAL UNIVERSITY, GUNTUR
Abstract
The recent irrigation techniques introduce automated irrigation using sophisticated equipments to supply water and nutrients to the plant as soon as they need it. Automated irrigation systems can increase crop yields, save water, energy and labour costs as compared with manual systems. The automation of the irrigation process is important for three main reasons: scarcity of water, timely irrigation and maximum crop profit. Automatic irrigation systems presently available are costly and are not adopted by most of the Indian farmers. Therefore, appropriate low cost technology has to be developed to facilitate high water use efficiency. As the farm holdings are not large enough in India and also high cost of automation cannot be realized in India, low cost automatic irrigation is suitable to farmers, if developed and can be made as a technology, farmers can feel comfortable in view of the frequent power cuts and less power available in his farm. To apply simple electronic circuit principles in irrigation an attempt has been made to develop low cost automated drip irrigation based on soil moisture. The experimental field with an area of 600 sq m was selected at field irrigation laboratory, Department of Soil and Water Engineering, College of Agricultural Engineering, Bapatla. The field was divided into five sub plots each with 3 × 20 m size to conduct experiments under drip irrigation with brinjal and tomato crops. The yield response of brinjal and tomato crops for different row to row spacings (50 cm row to row spacing and 30×70 cm paired row spacing) and irrigation application methods (flood irrigation, time based automated drip irrigation, soil moisture sensor based automated drip irrigation)were evaluated. The results revealed that the the yield response was observed to be best in soil moisture sensor based irrigation with paired row spacing. CRD design is used for statistical analysis of the yield data. The analysis of variance inferred that there is a significant difference in yield response at all treatment plots of brinjal and tomato. Soil moisture sensor was calibrated to switch off the motor when soil moisture reaches field capacity and switch on the motor when soil moisture reaches 80% of field capacity. Maximum penetration of root depth, well developed distribution of brinjal and tomato crops respectively were observed in soil moisture sensor based irrigation with paired row spacing compared to other treatments in both brinjal and tomato crops. The linear programming model was formulated to optimize the water supplies and maximize the profit. The maximum profit of Rs.46060/- per acre is obtained when brinjal is irrigated with 546480 liters of water. The cost economics of automated time based irrigation and soil moisture sensor based irrigation was carried out and results revealed that soil moisture sensor based irrigation system is low cost with initial system cost of Rs.786/- when compared with automated time based irrigation with initial system cost of Rs.87153.6 /-
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D5108
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