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This presentation formed part of the Farming Futures workshop 'Irrigation in a changing climate: save water, save money, get fit for the future'. 17th November 2009
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Irrigation in a changing climateSave water, save money
– improve your irrigation scheduling
Peter White Water Management
Cloverlea,Nuttery Lane,Aldringham
Leiston IP16 4QWUK
‘phone 07785 393925Office ‘phone and fax 01728 454 839
Email: PeterWhiteWater@irrigationworld2000.comwww.irrigationworld2000.com
How do you decide when to irrigate?
Kick the dust? – can we afford to UNDER or OVER-water,
- Do you know how much your irrigation application costs are?- Do you know how much poor irrigation is costing you in terms of yield and quality? Probably a lot more than you think!
ET based computer model? – how do you know what your starting moisture is? Some potatoes sites can have a massive moisture deficit post-planting
Continuous monitoring Probe?-The 21st century method-build up a detailed picture of exactly what is happening in your soil
The spade? - essential in managing irrigation scheduling
Peter White Water Management
Cloverlea,Nuttery Lane,Aldringham
Leiston IP16 4QWUK
‘phone 07785 393925Office ‘phone and fax 01728 454 839
Email: PeterWhiteWater@irrigationworld2000.comwww.irrigationworld2000.com
Leading the way in soil and substrate moisture monitoring solutions, interpretation
and advice for more than 15 years.
The technology What happens...
The smart probe is inserted into an installation tube drilled through the soil profile. Sensors are located at 10cm intervals which take a readingof the surrounding soil moisture every30 minutes.
The data is recorded and uploaded to the internet it can then be viewed by the grower as a tool to better managetheir irrigation.
The system displays both changes in soil moisture at each depth and a summed graph of the moisture available to the crop Benefits...
*Prevent crop water stress from under or over watering
*Reduced nutrient leaching
*Reduced disease pressure,
*Better root development
*Better utilisation of water supplies,
Improved quality and yield = Increased profits
View On your PC
View on your phone
Web Server
Our consultancy input
Data Collection
GPRS
So what can we learn from the soil moisture
data collected?
Salad onions – A graph of readings for each depth over time
Irrigation/rainfall event
Soil drying as the crop takes up water
Salad onions Top 30cm Summed – available water in the active root zone
Excess water draining out of the active root zone
Water available to the crop
Salad onions Separate Depths
Rainfall passing through at 50cm leaching nutrients outof root zone
Salad onions Top 30cm Summed
Red line is suggested optimum moisture application schedule for most situations.
Certain soils with hydrophobic properties should not be dried to far or they become difficult to re-wet
Refill the rooting zone, not just wet the top soil, give all the roots access to water and nutrients
Salad onions Top 30cm Summed
? ?
How close to field capacity do we want to refill the soil to?
Depends on soil type, crop stage and weather forecast Every situation is different
More data... Good irrigation Potatoes on light land Separate Depths
Water uptake at 50cm
Moisture stressed
Over irrigation
6 days
8mm/day
More data... Good irrigation Potatoes on light land Summed
And the result of good water management in this crop?
32T/Ac by August
This graph shows the sum of the 3 sensors in bagged strawberries. When daily irrigation was turned off....
See how water demand increases as soil is allowed to partially dry
Optimum conditions for healthy roots
Where ET models fail...
When is 30mm irrigation not 30mm irrigation?
Our probes monitor moisture where it matters – the crop root zone
“your probes are not working, we put on 30mm of water from a boom and your probes have not picked it up”
A couple of potato growers have called us this year....
Water lying in the furrow
Looked like a generous irrigation from the roadside
We know our sensors are accurate and reliable so what was
happening?
Cross section of potato ridge immediately after irrigation
Time to put the spade to work....
ET model would assume you had refilled the ridge, yet you can see only the top few cm had wetted up, most of the irrigation had run off into ridge
Infiltration rate of the extremely dry ridge too slow to take in 30mm boom irrigation in one application
Saturated furrow, probably leaching nutrients but no roots here at this stage of the crop
Does it matter ?
at this stage YES – none of the irrigation reached the roots of these young plants
The ridge – bone dry, crop is drought stressed, restricting growth and what about moisture for scab control on young tubers??
The solutions
Not easy, but if you do not know you have a problem you can not address it.
Apply little and often, each application will penetrate a little further into the ridge providing you do not let the previous irrigation dry out
Move to drip?
Does this happen on your land too?
Another ET example....Similiar ET Figures
Very different actual water uptake
Cost effective tools to help you make informed
decisions about your irrigation
Provides evidence of appropriate efficient water use when applying for abstraction licences
Improve yield, increase quality, better utilise water, labour and fuel
Contact us to arrange a trial system for 2010
Want to know more?
Like to try a system in your crops?
PeterWhite,Cloverlea,
Nuttery Lane,Aldringham
Leiston IP16 4QWUK
‘phone 07785 393925Office ‘phone and fax 01728 454 839
Email: [email protected]
www.irrigationworld2000.com
Jonathan Munslow,Rowley Farm
HarleyShropshire, SY5 6LX
UK‘phone 07977 299 113