Evaluate the performance of drip irrigation and discharge of emitters at Coastal area of GadapSindh

Kamran Bukhsh Soomro¹, JavaidAkhtar Rind², Abdul AhadKolachi¹, Fateh Khan Nizamani¹, Abdul Fatah Soomro¹

¹SSO,PIC, SARC, PARC, Karachi.

²PSO, PIC, SARC, PARC, Karachi.

³S.O,  PIC, SARC, PARC, Karachi.

⁴S.O, CDRI.SARC, PARC, Karachi.

Corresponding Author Email: kamisoomro75@hotmail.com

Accepted 22 July 2013

Abstract

Plant Introduction Centre of Southern-zone Agricultural Research Centre of PARC was carried out the research study at Abdul Wahid farm at Gadap of Karachi. The area is being irrigated by the runoff collected from the catchment of Gadap, which is stored in Thado dam. Mostly the crops are Chiku and bare giving fruits from May to July and the area under study was 3.65 hector (9 acres).T he climate in this area is mild to humid and the rainfall range from (180 to   250  mm  per year). The soil is sandy and pH range from 7.5 to 8.5. The fruit trees were planted at 40ftx40ft and 35ftx35ft feet and the drip irrigation system  consisted  of   the water source, motor pump, main, submain and lateral line, micro tubes and pressure gauge. The data was collected at the head, mid and tail   of  the   alternate laterals in the command of each sub main. The installation of drip irrigation application requires site survey, layout, Auto CAD layout, designing file which is used to calculate head losses and pump requirements, bill of quantities which have the total system cost, Installation layout, game plan, pictorial plan,  installation  log book, commissioning paper and project completion certificate. The emitters flow rate was measured by graduated cylinder  used    to    measure    the   volume collected for a given time with the help of stopwatch. Discharge uniformity was measured to find that how evenly the water is distributed within   the    installation drip irrigation system. The variation in discharge at the head, mid, and tail of each lateral was due to various factors include clogging of the emitters, slop, size of the emitters, length of lateral lines, leakage of joints and end plugs. The discharge uniformity under different distances of hydrozones from water source on main line basis is 97 % at 79.8 feet of distance among emitters at head, mid and tail on lateral line. On the basis of    coefficient   of   variation    the   hydrozone   7   is performing well, hydro zone 5 is average, hydro zone 1,2,3,4,9,10,11,12 were marginal and hydrozone 6,8 were in the range    of    unacceptable. The   emission uniformity of each hydrozone was range from 52.28 to 84.65 % with an overall average of 69.53%.Emitters discharge data were collected by volumetric  method on lateral line to check whether the system is performing well or not and making of the commissioning paper which has all these details discharge (GPH), position of emitters, no of laterals line and questions about farmers satisfaction.

Keywords :  Drip irrigation,  Discharge of Emitters,  Coastal area of Gadap Sindh