Soil water and nitrate distribution under drip irrigated corn receiving pig slurry

G. Arbat, A. Roselló, F. Domingo Olivé, J. Puig-Bargués, E. González Llinàs, M. Duran-Ros, J. Pujol and F. Ramírez de Cartagena

Agricultural Water Management, 2013, vol. 120, issue C, 11-22

Abstract: Intensive swine production in Catalonia (NE Spain) has great economic importance. Applying the resulting pig slurry as fertilizer is technically sound, but there is a risk of nitrate leaching. It is therefore important to determine the amount of pig slurry that will achieve an acceptable crop yield yet prevent environmental risks. In an experiment carried out in 2009 irrigation water and grain yield in a silt loam soil were compared for furrow and drip irrigation with two emitter spacings (30 and 50cm). The results showed that using drip irrigation improved water use efficiency (WUE) and that WUE and corn yield were not significantly different for emitters spaced at 30 and 50cm. Based on these results, in 2010 the irrigation was carried out using emitters spaced 50cm apart. Two different pre-planting fertilization treatments (0 and 120kgN/ha from pig slurry) were applied. In addition, each of those two treatments was subjected to ten different side-dress fertilization treatments, with the rate of nitrogen applied through fertigation ranging from 0 to 300kgN/ha. Soil water distribution simulated with HYDRUS-2D showed good agreement with observed values.

Keywords: Pig slurry; Nitrogen management; Fertilization strategies; Nitrate leaching; HYDRUS-2D; Micro-irrigation; Corn yield (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2013
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (6)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0378377412002077
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:agiwat:v:120:y:2013:i:c:p:11-22

DOI: 10.1016/j.agwat.2012.08.001

Access Statistics for this article

Agricultural Water Management is currently edited by B.E. Clothier, W. Dierickx, J. Oster and D. Wichelns

More articles in Agricultural Water Management from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().