Abstract:
Fertigation refers to the combined application of irrigation water and soluble
fertilizer through an irrigation system directly to the crop root zone. Fertigation is a
frontier technology, which saves the fertilizers and increases the use efficiency of applied
nutrients and the yield of crop. Nutrients can be injected into the system at various
frequencies viz., once a day or once every two days or even once a week, depends on
system design constraints, on soil type and on grower preference. Surface application of
dry fertilizer may not ensure optimum placement, requires lot of manpower and is a time
consuming processes compared to fertigation through drip system. Now a days micro
irrigation technique such as the drip and micro sprinkler systems are gaining momentum
and popularity among the farmers.
The generally used fertigation system is comparatively costly and prone to
clogging. It is therefore necessary to introduce a low cost effective fertigation system
with a performance meeting the design expectations. The present study was undertaken to
analyze the performance of a low cost effective fertgation tank fabricated locally. The
fabricated fertilizer tank was compared with venturi injector assembly, drip irrigation
system with manual fertilizer application and conventional surface irrigation method for
its performance, uniformity coefficient and cost effectiveness.
In the field study, fertigation systems were compared on the basis of biometric
observations such as yield, stem girth, stem height, number of fruits and number of
branches. From the observations, it was seen that fabricated fertigation tank was more
efficient compared to the other systems. The fabricated fertigation tank was tested for its
hydraulic performance in terms of uniformity coefficient in the field. The uniformity
coefficient values of the system were found to range between 89 to 94 %. The system was
also analyzed for the cost effectiveness. It was noted that the returns obtained using the
fabricated fertigation system was greater compared to the venturi injector system.
