Hydraulics and salinity profile of pitcher irrigation in saline water condition

B.S. Naik, R.K. Panda, S.C. Nayak and S.D. Sharma

Agricultural Water Management, 2008, vol. 95, issue 10, 1129-1134

Abstract: The hydraulics of pitcher irrigation in saline water condition was studied in laboratory conditions in terms of flow behaviour of pitcher, soil moisture distribution, wetting front advance and distribution of salt concentration in the soil using different pitcher making materials. The Pitcher Type 1 (PT1) made up of local soil and sand yielded the lowest mean hourly depletion ranging from 0.42 to 0.62% depending on salinity of the water used. It was followed by PT2 made up of local soil, sand and resinous material with a mean hourly depletion of 0.51-0.69% and PT3 with local soil, saw dust and sand with a mean hourly depletion of 0.91-1.02%. In all cases, with the increase in salinity level of the water used (ranging from 5 to 20 dS/m), the depletion rate and moisture content in the soil profile were found to decrease. Similarly, it was found that PT1 yielded the lowest wetting front advance and salt movement followed by PT2 and PT3. It was observed that the wetting front advance in the soil decreased with increasing salinity level of the water. The salt concentration in the soil was minimum near the pitcher and maximum at the soil surface and periphery of the wetted zone. In case of PT1, the maximum salt concentration in the soil profile ranged between 1.09 and 3.88 dS/m using water with a salinity ranging from 5 to 20 dS/m, respectively. Similarly, for PT2 the maximum salt concentration in the soil profile also ranged from 1.09 to 3.88 dS/m and for PT3 from 2.30 to 6.07 dS/m. A paired t-test revealed that the moisture as well as the salt distribution of PT3 differed significantly from PT1 and PT2 at [alpha] = 0.05. Even, if the salt concentration remained the same and the moisture content remained within field capacity for PT1 and PT2, PT1 is preferred in comparison to PT2 and PT3 as the pitcher material of PT1 is locally economically available.

Keywords: Pitcher; irrigation; Flow; behaviour; Soil; moisture; distribution; Pitcher; base; material; Wetting; front; advance; Salt; distribution (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2008
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0378-3774(08)00107-8
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:95:y:2008:i:10:p:1129-1134

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 ().