Performance evaluation of cost effective fertigation system

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.