International Conference on Chemical, Environmental and Biological Sciences (CEBS-2015) March 18-19, 2015 Dubai (UAE) Effect of Irrigation Technique on the Efficiency of Furrow Irrigation Abdelmoneim Mohammed1, Nahla Abdeen2, and Abdel Rhman Hamid3 front of the flow reached the end of the furrow, the flow is completely cutoff. Surge flow irrigation is defined as the intermittent application of irrigation water to furrows or border, creating a series of on and off modes of constant or variable time spans [5]. Water application efficiency is the volume of water needed and made available for evapotranspiration by the crop to avoid undesirable water stress in the plants through the growing cycle divided by the volume of water delivered to the field [6]. Water storage efficiency becomes important when water supplies are limited, also when salt problems exist. The water storage efficiency should be kept high to maintain a favorable salt balance [7]. The important characteristic of irrigation is uniform distribution of irrigation water throughout the root zone [8]. Therefore, the objective of the study was to determine application, distribution and storage efficiency for furrow irrigation using four techniques namely; surge flow, bunds, cut-back and cut-off. Abstract—This study was conducted at the Demonstration Farm, Faculty of Agriculture, University of Khartoum, Shambat, clay soil with the objective to determine application, distribution and storage efficiencies for furrow irrigation using four techniques namely; surge flow, bunds, cut-back and cutoff. The furrow length was 82 m. The four techniques were randomly distributed in the experimental area and the design followed was Randomized Complete Block Design. The results showed that the highest application efficiency of 82% was obtained with surge irrigation technique followed by bund (64%) cutback (49%) and cutoff (32%), respectively. Results of distribution efficiency showed that the highest efficiency of 98% was obtained with the surge irrigation technique followed by the cut-back (95%), bund (92%), and cutoff (90%), respectively. Surge irrigation technique resulted in the highest storage efficiency of 73% followed by bund (58%), cut-back (44%) and cutoff (29%), respectively. Keywords— Irrigation efficiency, surge irrigation, cutoff, cutback, bunds. I. INTRODUCTION F URROW irrigation avoids flooding the entire field surface II. MATERIALS AND METHODS by channeling the flow along the primary direction of the field slope using furrows, creases, or corrugations [1]. Furrow irrigation best suits clean tilled crops planted in rows [2] Bunds are strips made along the run or along the furrow so as to increase the duration between applying the water and infiltration i.e. to increase. The contact time or opportunity time [1]. In many countries the name bund is associated with various kinds of erosion-controlling banks which have grass or shrubs planted on them. The object of the grass may be whether to trap silt from surface runoff water, or for the roots to help bind the bank together [3]. Cut-back is commonly used to reduce the quantity of irrigation runoff. This method utilizes a large furrow stream to rapidly advance the length of the field and wet-up the furrow. When the water has reached the end of the field, the size of furrow stream is cut-back to one third or to one half of the original furrow flow [4]. While cut off is a traditional practice to stop the flow when the advancing wetting front reached 75% of the furrow length. The test of the traditional practice was conducted using flow rate 1.5 times or more than the flow rate used with cut-back method. When the advance wetting The experiment was conducted at the Demonstration Farm of Faculty of Agriculture, University of Khartoum, Shambat at latitude l5o 40'n and longitude 32°32'E. The climate is described as tropical arid. The first experimental period extended from November 2010 to January 2011, the second from April 2011 to June 2011 and the last from October 2011 to November 2011. The four techniques studied were surge, bund, cut-back and cutoff (Traditional) irrigation techniques. The furrow length was 82m and 0.8m width. The total area of the experiment was 1700 m2. The techniques were randomly distributed in the experimental area. The experimental design followed was the Randomized Complete Block Design. Soil mechanical analysis was conducted at the Soil Science Laboratory of the Faculty of Agriculture, University of Khartoum. Samples were taken from three locations chosen randomly in the field. From each location four samples were taken at depths of 0.2, 0.4, 0.6 and 0.8 m down the soil profile. Mean for each depth was taken to represent the soil textural class. Land preparation was carried out with disc plough (to a depth of 0.25 m), disc harrow to break the clods and firm the top soil, leveler, land surveying and land ridging. A head ditch was excavated at the upper part of the field. A stabilizer ditch was excavated parallel to the head ditch (from which it was supplied with the irrigation water) in order to facilitate the control and measurement of the inflow rate. Three uniform Abdelmoneim Mohammed1 is with Dept. of Agric. Eng., Fac. of Agric., Univ. of Khartoum, Sudan. Nahla Abdeen2 was with Dept. of Agric. Eng., Fac. of Agric., and Univ. of Khartoum, Sudan. Abdel Rhman Hamid3 is with Dept. of Agric. Eng., Fac. of Agric. Tech. & Fish-Sci., AI Neelain Univ., Sudan. (e-mail: [email protected]). http://dx.doi.org/10.15242/IICBE.C0315068 168 International Conference on Chemical, Environmental and Biological Sciences (CEBS-2015) March 18-19, 2015 Dubai (UAE) III. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION furrows with 0.8 m spacing and 82 m long were chosen for each technique. Heads of 0.25 m were maintained in the stabilizer ditch. Stream size of mean value of 3 L/s was turned into each furrow using two siphon tubes with 0.05 m inside diameter and 2.8 m long, a discharge of 1.5 L/s was obtained as a furrow stream to apply water. Cutoff time, when the advance wetting front of the flow reached the end of the furrow, the flow was completely cutoff. Cut-back time, when the water has reached the end of the field, the size of furrow stream is cut-back to half (1.5 L/s) of the original flow into the furrow. Surge flow time, the duration of time between successive inflow periods called the cycle time, was chosen so that several on-off cycles were required to complete the advance phase of the irrigation. The cycle ratio is ratio of on to off times. [9]. defined water application efficiency for an irrigated area (Ea%) as the ratio, expressed in percent, of depth of water stored in root zone to the water applied during irrigation and expressed as follow: Table I shows the percentage particle size distribution of the soil obtained for increments of 0.2 m down the soil profile to 0.8 m depth. According to USDA soil textural classification chart, the soil was classified as clay. There were no significant differences between the four incremental depths for the clay, silt and sand percentages but clay increased with depth. Whereas, silt percentage decreased with depth, while sand percentage remained relatively constant. This agreed with results obtained by [11] and [12]. Results of application efficiency as affected by the irrigation technique were shown in Table II. The highest application efficiency of 82 % was recorded by surge irrigation technique, followed by bund (64%) cut-back (49%) and cutoff (32%), respectively. This can be attributed to the fact that surge irrigation at the midpoint of the furrow offered greater opportunity for water intake because it applied water in cycles, a state which resulted Ds in a high amount of water being stored in the root zone, which Ea % 100 Df in turn resulted in a high application efficiency as stated by [4]. The highest distribution efficiency of 98% was recorded Where: by surge irrigation technique, followed by cut-back (95%), Ea% = water application efficiency, as percentage. Ds = average depth of irrigation water infiltrated or stored bund (92%) and cutoff (90%), respectively. This indicates that the distribution efficiencies obtained under all tested irrigation in the root zone during irrigation techniques were high. These results may be due to the regular Df = average depth of irrigation water delivered to the farm. The concept of water storage efficiency (Es%) is useful to slopes and the suitable volume of water required to complete an advance gives the potential to increase the distribution assist in the evaluation of application efficiency and irrigation uniformity as stated by [13], [14] and [15]. practice. According to [8] storage efficiency can be expressed The highest storage efficiency of 73% was obtained under as follow: surge irrigation technique followed by bund (58%), cut-back Ws (44%) and cutoff (29%), respectively. This can be attributed to Es % 100 Wn the fact that in surge irrigation technique, the water was Where: applied intermittently in an amount of more than the Es% = water storage efficiency, as percentage. infiltration rate of the soil. Also, in surge irrigation technique Ws = water stored in the root zone during irrigation. the duration of the rest period was long enough for most of the applied water to infiltrate before the next cycle was started Wn = water stored in the root zone prior to irrigation. Water stored in the root zone can be determined using the and this had resulted in higher storage efficiency compared to the conventional method as stated by [16]. and [17]. [5] stated following formula: that surge irrigation technique reduces run off losses and high Mc Ad Mc Bd We D ETo ( for 3 daysirrigation ) efficiencies might be obtained using that technique. 4 Where: McAd = moisture content on depth basis after irrigation. McBd = moisture content on depth basis before irrigation. ETo = reference crop evapotranspiration (mm/day). Distribution efficiency (Ed%) expresses the extent to which water was uniformly distributed along the run. According to [10] water distribution efficiency can be expressed as follow: IV. CONCLUSIONS In this study surge irrigation technique resulted in the highest overall irrigation efficiencies compared to all other irrigation techniques used. TABLE I SOIL PARTICLE SIZE DISTRIBUTION FOR EACH 0.2 M FROM THE SURFACE TO 0.8M DEPTH Depth(m) Clay% Silt % Sand1% Class 0.0-0.2 45.28 31.31 23.40 Clay 0.2-0.4 48.43 29.11 22.43 Clay 0.4-0.6 46.50 32.25 18.10 Clay 0.6-0.8 50.00 31.34 16.00 Clay y Ea (%) (1 )100 d Where: d = Average depth of water stored along the run during the irrigation (mm). http://dx.doi.org/10.15242/IICBE.C0315068 169 International Conference on Chemical, Environmental and Biological Sciences (CEBS-2015) March 18-19, 2015 Dubai (UAE) TABLE II APPLICATION DISTRIBUTION AND STORAGE EFFICIENCIES OF THE FOUR IRRIGATION TECHNIQUES Efficiency Irrigation technique Surge Bund Cut-back Cutoff Application (Ea%) 82 64 49 32 Distribution (Ed%) 98 92 95 90 Storage (Es%) 73 58 44 29 Over all (%) 59 34 21 8 REFERENCES [1] [2] [3] [4] W.R. Walker, “Guidance for Design and Evaluating Surface Irrigation Systems: FAO, Irrigation and Drainage” Rome, Italy, 45: 3-80. 1989. W.E. Hart, H.G. Collins, G.Woodward, and A.S. 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