Water saving in sugarcane with drip over flood irrigation

Water saving in sugarcane with drip over flood irrigation

Date: 23-10-2023

Steps in evolution of Irrigation in India

The present irrigation practices is the part of constant evolution process. It started with the bullock & mote to extract water from the well & irrigating the land with furrows, then after the introduction of water pumps & PVC pipe it took the Irrigation revolution to the next level. With the introduction of micro-irrigation, it again gone to the next level.

The drop by drop application of water directly to the root zone of the plant on the basis of its daily water requirement is called Drip Irrigation.

It’s a common question to me, how there is the water saving & how there is rise in yield compared with flood irrigation.

Here to explain the same, advantages of drip Irrigation over flood irrigation, we will consider the example of Irrigating 1 Ha of sugarcane with Drip Irrigation & with flood Irrigation.

Water Requirement for 1 Ha Sugarcane with Flood Irrigation

The water requirement for any crop with flood Irrigation is calculated on the basis of its Duty. Duty for sugarcane is the area irrigated with 1 Cusec (28.33 lps) of water which is 55 acres.

On the basis of the same the water requirement for sugarcane considering 365 days of Irrigation for flood Irrigation will be 40.12 million liters per Ha. Here we have not considered the crop watering with rainfall.

Water Requirement for 1 Ha Sugarcane with Flood Irrigation

The daily water requirement for any crop is its earlier day’s water losses in Evapotranspiration. The maximum water requirement for Sugarcane is 7mm.

Here on the basis of average water requirement the total water requirement in 365 days will be 15 million liters per Ha. Here we have not considered the crop watering with rainfall.

Conclusion

The final results suggests that there is overall water saving of up to 60% in drip Irrigation compared with Sprinkler Irrigation.

Reasons for Rise in yield in Drip Irrigation over flood Irrigation

• Along with the advantages of water saving there are many more additional advantages as mentioned below due to which the rise in yield can be seen with drip Irrigation.
• Water use efficiency of 90 to 95% in drip Irrigation compared with 50% efficiency in flood Irrigation
• Field capacity condition maintained 24x7 in drip Irrigation as against extreme wilting & saturated conditions in flood Irrigation.
• Drip Irrigation is possible for extreme undulating land also while with flood Irrigation, it is hard to irrigate with more undulating land.
• Fertigation is possible with drip Irrigation reducing the fertilizer losses up to 30%.
• More soil erosion in flood Irrigation reducing the soil fertility.