PERFORMANCE EVALUATION OF RAINHOSE IRRIGATION SYSTEM

Abstract

A study was conducted to evaluate the performance of rain hose irrigation system which is an affordable irrigation technology and modern technique of irrigation. It consists of a flexible pipe with a pattern of holes. The relationship between the operating pressure and discharge of the system, the soil moisture wetting pattern and the water distribution pattern in the soil at different operating pressures were determined in this study. The performance of Rainhose irrigation system under different operating pressures were analyzed. The relationship between various pressures and their corresponding discharges were plotted. The increasing pressure had a linear relationship with discharge. The soil moisture content at higher pressure is more compared with lower pressure and could also found that water infiltrates to higher depth with increasing pressure. The top surface contains higher moisture content and it decreases with depth. The water distribution is more uniform at higher pressures and the uniformity coefficient is approximately 74%, which is comparatively lesser than sprinkler irrigation. In case of multilateral system due to lesser spatial variation the coefficient of uniformity is higher. The results of the study reveal of that rain hose irrigation system ensures uniform and high flow rate of water at right operating pressure and discharge rate, which is suitable for closely spaced and shallow-rooted crops like onion, groundnut, vegetable crops and leafy vegetables. The discharge per unit length of the irrigation was found to be increased as operating pressure increased. Throw distance also found to be increased with operating pressure. As pressure increased depth of water infiltrated into the soil was also found to be increased. Analysis of results showed that the spatial variation is lesser in multilateral system. As the pressure increased coefficient of uniformity was also found to be increased. The rainhose irrigation system performed well at operating pressure of 1.5 kg/cm².