Comparison between surge irrigation and conventional furrow irrigation for covered black tobacco cultivation in a Ferralsol soil

Abstract

Over 51,000 ha of low yield tobacco were harvested in the year 2000/2001 in Cuba. Since the Union of Tobacco Enterprises plans to increase this area to 72,000 ha of tobacco in 2005, where most of these new areas will be irrigated with surface irrigation, then the introduction of new irrigation technologies is an important premise to achieve high yield productions. Because of this, some field evaluations of furrow irrigation with continuous and intermittent flow applications were carried out on a plot belonging to the «Cítricos Ciego de Avila» enterprise, in the Ceballos municipality of the Ciego de Avila province, Cuba. The objective of these field evaluations was to compare the hydraulic behavior of different water management strategies of furrow irrigation for the cultivation of black tobacco in a Ferralsol soil, using a surface irrigation simulation model. The intermittent application of water considerably reduced the infiltration capacity of the soil. Likewise, the influence of soil water content and furrow wetted perimeter on infiltration parameters was corroborated. The surge flow furrow irrigation with variable time cycles increased the application efficiency by more than six fold, and the water volume was reduced by more than 80% compared to continuous irrigation. The largest rises in distribution uniformity and reductions in percolation losses were obtained with a furrow length of 200 m and a discharge of 1 L s -1 , respectively. Key words: infiltration, water management, performance indices. ResumenComparación entre el riego por pulsos y el riego por surcos convencional para el cultivo del tabaco negro tapado en un suelo Ferralsol En la campaña 2000/2001 se cosecharon en Cuba alrededor de 51.000 ha de tabaco con un rendimiento medio relativamente bajo. Si se considera que para el año 2005 la Unión de Empresas del Tabaco prevé crecer hasta 72.600 ha, en donde la mayor parte de esta superficie será regada con métodos superficiales, entonces la introducción de nuevas tecnologías de riego por superficie es una premisa necesaria para lograr los incrementos previstos en los volúmenes de producción del tabaco. Teniendo en cuenta lo anterior, se realizaron evaluaciones de campo de riego por surcos con flujo continuo e intermitente en áreas de la empresa «Cítricos de Ciego de Avila», ubicada en el municipio Ceballos de la provincia de Ciego de Ávila, Cuba. El objetivo de las evaluaciones fue comparar el comportamiento hidráulico de diferentes estrategias de manejo del riego por surcos para el cultivo del tabaco negro tapado en un suelo Ferralsol. Se ejecutaron experimentos numéricos con un modelo matemático de simulación a fin de determinar las estrategias óptimas de manejo del riego por pulsos y comparar sus índices de idoneidad con los del riego por surcos convencional. La aplicación intermitente del agua en el riego por surcos redujo considerablemente la capacidad de infiltración del suelo. Asimismo, se constató la influencia que ejerce el contenido de agua en el suelo y el perímetro mojado del surco...

Irrigation Water Management Practices that Reduce Water Requirements for Mid‐South Furrow‐Irrigated Soybean

“…Reduced water use in IWM at the field scale was equivalent to values observed for individual IWM practices at the meso‐plot scale. For example, relative to CONV, CHS reduced irrigation water use in soybean 17% (Krutz 2016), and surge flow reduced irrigation water use in soybean from 24% to 80% relative to the control (Izuno et al, 1985; Musick et al, 1987; Testezlaf et al, 1987; Rodriguez et al, 2004). Additionally, sensor‐based scheduling reduced the number of irrigations applied to soybean 50% compared with CONV (Krutz et al, 2014.…”

Surge Irrigation Reduces Irrigation Requirements for Soybean on Smectitic Clay‐Textured Soils

“…Water applied per SURGE event and total water applied with SURGE in season was reduced by 22 and 24%, respectively, as compared with CONV (Table 3). Others reported that SURGE on clay‐textured soils reduced total irrigation water use 31 to 80% (Izuno et al, 1985; Testezlaf et al, 1987; Musick et al, 1987; Rodriguez et al, 2004). Additionally, linear regression analysis indicated that 98% of the variability in the percent reduction in irrigation water applied by SURGE was a function of furrow length (Fig.…”

Validation of Surge Model Using Furrow Gradient and Flow Retardance

“…Over the years, minor changes have been made to improve the efficiency of surface irrigation system. Surge irrigation is a relatively new technique whereby water to surface irrigated furrows is applied intermittently in a series of relatively short ON and OFF time periods of irrigation cycles [5][6][7][8]. It is claimed that the ON-OFF cycling of the flow for specific time periods produces surges during the ON period and influences the soil intake during the OFF period when water soaks into the soil [9][10][11]12].…”