EVALUATION OF DRIP IRRIGATION SYSTEM FOR DIFFERENT OPERATING PRESSURES

Abstract

Drip irrigation method distributes water to the field using the pipe network and transforms it from the pipe
network to the plant by emitters. Hydraulic design seems to be only one of the major factors in the evaluation of overall
uniformity of a micro-irrigation system. A field experiment was conducted to analyze the hydraulic performance drip
irrigation system on emitter discharge, coefficient of variation and emission uniformity, statistical uniformity coefficient,
variation of emitter flow, emitter flow uniformity and absolute uniformity. This The experiment were conducted to collect
discharge rate at nine different pressures i.e. 0.3, 0.4, 0.5, 0.6, 0.7, 0.9, 1.0, 1.1 and 1.2 kg/cm2
to assess the hydraulic
performance of drip irrigation system. Emission uniformity (Eu) of the system decides the uniformity distribution of
discharge by each emitter or uniformity distribution of water to each crop. Result shows that the discharge flow rate of
emitter is increased when the increase of the pressure and the coefficient of variation is increased when the pressure is
decreased means the pressure directly affected the discharge rate of emitter. The average emission uniformity coefficient
(E’u) observed at 0.3, 0.4, 0.6, 0.7, 0.9, 1.0, 1.1 and 1.2 kg /cm2
pressure were 79.913, 90.914, 94.040, 87.361, 90.373
91.120 94.546 and 94.753 percent respectively for 2 l/hr. The best results were concluded for 1.2 kg/cm2 with Coefficient
of determination (R2
) with 0.798 and different hydraulic measures such as E’u, Eu, EuA and Qavg at 1.2 kg/cm2
pressure
for inline drippers was 94.75, 90.46, 94.69, 1.875 l/hr respectively which indicates that the system is excellent and
efficient. The above results can be suggested for actual practise to get better yield.