Abstract

LUCERO-VEGA, Gregorio et al. Design of an underground irrigation system to decrease soil evaporation, as compared with two conventional methods. Agrociencia [online]. 2017, vol.51, n.5, pp.487-505. ISSN 2521-9766.

The underground irrigation system is an alternative to increase water productivity in agriculture since it minimizes surface evaporation and increases water supply efficiency in the root zone. The objective of this study was to evaluate the amount of water lost by evaporation in three irrigation systems, two of them through surface supply and an underground irrigation system. Three irrigation systems were evaluated in, September 2015 and January 2016, by irrigation located in ditches (RZ), underground irrigation by diffusers (RSD) and drip irrigation with tape (RGC). The RZ system consisted of 1 m of ditch with 15 cm deep. The RSD was a sanitary PVC pipe of 5.08 cm inner diameter and 1 m long with side grooves located every 8.2 cm, placed horizontally at 20 cm deep, which is exposed to the ground surface by means of an elbow and tube segment of 30 cm long and the same diameter. The diffuser is filled with gravel from 3 to 7 mm to prevent ingress of fine particles. The RGC was 1 m of drip irrigation tape of 1.1 L h-1 every 20 cm. To measure moisture and evaporation, 10 L were applied to each irrigation system. We took samples of 150 g of soil at depths of 0 to 5, 5 to 10, 10 to 15 and 15 to 20 cm; moisture was determined with the gravimetric method, the first sampling was performed 15 min after irrigation and the following samples 24, 72 and 120 h. The RSD system showed the lowest evaporation; the difference between RSD and RZ was 30 % in 2015 and 41 % in 2016; the difference between RSD and RGC was 44 %, similar in both dates.

Keywords : irrigation; water supply; sub-surface irrigation.

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