Water management assessment in a historic garden: the case study of the Real Alcazar (Seville, Spain)

Irrigation plays a very important role in a Mediterranean garden. In spite of this, there are not many studies assessing irrigation water management of landscapes. Moreover, historic gardens represent a special challenge due to their unique characteristics. The aim of this work is the characterization and evaluation of water management in a historic garden. For that, the gardens of The Real Alcazar of Seville were used as a case study. They comprise a total of 20 gardens of different styles with a total area of nearly 7 ha. Landscape water requirements and irrigation volume applied were estimated and used in conjunction with other descriptive and financial variables to calculate 6 performance indicators. Only 20% of gardens showed adequate irrigation in the spring-autumn period, being 10% during summer. However, the two well-watered gardens represent 30% of the total irrigated area. Management, operation and maintenance costs are 0.63 €·m−2 representing 0.58 € per volume of irrigation water used (m−3). Results obtained support the need of improving irrigation management. For that, simple solutions such as installing metering devices, calculating actual water requirements or optimizing irrigation schedules can be implemented. Other more complex actions such as modifying the irrigation network or creating hydrozones might also be explored

Field test of an automatic controller for solid-set sprinkler irrigation

13 Págs., 4 Figs., 5 Tabls. The definitive version is available at: http://link.springer.com/journal/271The application of new technologies to the control and automation of irrigation processes is becoming very important, and the automatic generation and execution of irrigation schedules is receiving growing attention. In this paper, a prototype automatic irrigation controller for solid-set systems is presented. The device is composed by software and hardware developments. The software was named Ador-Control and it integrates five modules: the first four modules simulate drop trajectories, water distribution, crop growth and yield, and the last module ensures bidirectional communication between software and hardware. Decision variables based on soil, crop, and irrigation performance indexes were used to make real-time irrigation decisions. A randomized experimental design was designed to validate the automatic controller over a corn crop during two seasons. Three treatments were analyzed: T0) manual programmer or advanced farmer; T1) automatic scheduling controlled by indexes based on soil simulated water content and irrigation performance; and T2) advanced automatic scheduling controlled by simulated thresholds of crop and irrigation indexes. Experimental results in 2009 and 2010 indicated that automatic irrigation treatments resulted in similar maize yield but using less water than manual irrigation (10 % between T0 and T1, and 18 % between T0 and T2). © 2012 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.This research was funded by the MCINN of the Government of Spain through grants AGL2007-66716-C03-01/02 and AGL2010-21681-C03-01Peer reviewe

Water productivity of irrigted agriculture in India: potential areas for improvement

Water productivityIrrigated farmingWater use efficiencyWheatCottonRiver basinsWater conservation

Field test of an automatic controller for solid-set sprinkler irrigation

The application of new technologies to the control and automation of irrigation processes is becoming very important, and the automatic generation and execution of irrigation schedules is receiving growing attention. In this paper, a prototype automatic irrigation controller for solid-set systems is presented. The device is composed by software and hardware developments. The software was named Ador-Control and it integrates five modules: the first four modules simulate drop trajectories, water distribution, crop growth and yield, and the last module ensures bidirectional communication between software and hardware. Decision variables based on soil, crop, and irrigation performance indexes were used to make real-time irrigation decisions. A randomized experimental design was designed to validate the automatic controller over a corn crop during two seasons. Three treatments were analyzed: T0) manual programmer or advanced farmer; T1) automatic scheduling controlled by indexes based on soil simulated water content and irrigation performance; and T2) advanced automatic scheduling controlled by simulated thresholds of crop and irrigation indexes. Experimental results in 2009 and 2010 indicated that automatic irrigation treatments resulted in similar maize yield but using less water than manual irrigation (10 % between T0 and T1, and 18 % between T0 and T2).Peer ReviewedPublishe

Identifying Advantages and Disadvantages of Variable Rate Irrigation – An Updated Review

Variable rate irrigation (VRI) sprinklers on mechanical move irrigation systems (center pivot or lateral move) have been commercially available since 2004. Although the number of VRI, zone or individual sprinkler, systems adopted to date is lower than expected there is a continued interest to harness this technology, especially when climate variability, regulatory nutrient management, water conservation policies, and declining water for agriculture compound the challenges involved for irrigated crop production. This article reviews the potential advantages and potential disadvantages of VRI technology for moving sprinklers, provides updated examples on such aspects, suggests a protocol for designing and implementing VRI technology and reports on the recent advancements. The advantages of VRI technology are demonstrated in the areas of agronomic improvement, greater economic returns, environmental protection and risk management, while the main drawbacks to VRI technology include the complexity to successfully implement the technology and the lack of evidence that it assures better performance in net profit or water savings. Although advances have been made in VRI technologies, its penetration into the market will continue to depend on tangible and perceived benefits by producers

Development of IoT Based Smart Irrigation System with Programmable Logic Controller

Smart irrigation system is an automatic irrigation and monitoring system on agricultural land with a sensor, automation, and control technology based on the Internet of Things (IoT). This system can reduce the agricultural activities that were previously performed manually into an automatic system with a reduced human supervision. Smart Irrigation systems that are widely developed used Arduino as the controller. Arduino still lacks in response, low durability, and sensitivity to temperature change, hence requiring frequent maintenance to avoid weather disturbances, insects, and others. This paper presents a development of a smart irrigation system using a Programmable Logic Controller (PLC) as the controller and a soil moisture sensor as a humidity condition measurement tool. The advantage of using PLC as a controller is more stable and has sensor compatibility with higher accuracy. Hence the results are more consistent and accurate. The PLC system is expandable, allowing for the inclusion of more channels for sensors and other measurement instruments. The developed system can collect data on soil moisture conditions, trigger valves, and perform auto irrigation using sprinklers, reducing or even eliminating the need for human intervention. The IoT collects data from sensors and updates the data into a database system, allowing users to monitor the land conditions in real-time. The developed system was predicted to save manpower (20%) and water usage (42.47%) compared to the conventional method. Keywords: Smart Irrigation; IoT; PLC; Moisture Sensor; Sprinkle

Automatic programmers for solid set sprinkler irrigation systems

6 Pags., 1 Tabl., 2 Figs.Introduction: The application of new technologies to the control and automation of irrigation processes is becoming very important in the last decade. Although automation of irrigation execution (irrigation programmers) is now widespread the automatic generation and execution of irrigation schedules is receiving growing attention due to the possibilities offered by the telemetry / remote control systems currently being installed in collective pressurized networks. In this paper, a prototype autonomous irrigation controller for solid set systems is presented. Material and Methods: The autonomous irrigation controller for solid set sprinkler irrigation systems is composed by software and hardware. The software simulates drop trajectories emitted by each sprinkler (Playán et al., 2006), water distribution in the soil and crop growth and yield (Dechmi et al., 2004, Zapata et al., 2009). Although the model simulates sprinkler water application, the control unit was the irrigated block of the solid set irrigated field. Variability inside an irrigated block was represented by decision variables (irrigation, soil and crop performance indexes) that can control the irrigation timing of the different blocks of the farm. The hardware was a research prototype translating the irrigation schedules into electrical orders to open or close solenoid valves and collecting and transmitting local sensor readings to the software. A field experiment was designed to test and validate the automatic programmer over a corn crop during two irrigation seasons (2009 and 2010). A randomized experimental design with four replicates was used to analyze three treatments: T0) a manual programmer acting as an advanced farmer; T1) automatic scheduling controlled by the estimated water content in the soil and simulated irrigation performance; and T2) advanced automatic scheduling controlled by crop and irrigation simulations. Results/Conclusions: Experimental results in 2009 and 2010 indicated that T0 was the treatment receiving most water, followed by T1 and T2. Yield parameters did not show significant differences between treatments. Automatic irrigation scheduling resulted in similar maize yield to manual irrigation. Differences were relevant in applied water (9% between T0 and T1, and 15% between T0 and T2).This research was funded by the MCINN of the Government of Spain through grants AGL2007-66716-C03-01/02 and AGL2010-21681-C03-01.Peer reviewe

Practical Improvements for Pivot and Surface Irrigation

Irrigation is critical to meeting global food and fiber demands. Optimizing agricultural irrigation may help sustain production levels, while reducing its demand for water. This research evaluated precision sprinklers and drip irrigation for pivots, five pivot track mitigation tools, three scientific irrigation scheduling (SIS) methods, sensors for surface irrigation cutoff, and automating surface systems to implement surge irrigation. With pivots and surface irrigation being the most common methods for irrigation in the West, small improvements from these tools could result in significant water savings. Low energy precision application (LEPA) sprinklers and mobile drip irrigation (MDI) were tested on two pivots. LEPA did not often maintain yield, even with similar application amounts to the mid elevation sprinkler application (MESA) control. MDI reduced yield by 6 – 25% in 2018, while applying half as much water as MESA. In following years, MDI rarely maintained yield, even when applying more than MESA. For LEPA and MDI to maintain yield with less water, the correct situations and proper adaptations must be carefully chosen. With the intent to improve pivot wheel tracks, installing LEPA around the pivot tower was the best of five tested methods, reducing track depths by 47 – 63% in one year. Adapting the correct method to field conditions and position on the pivot can result in shallower wheel tracks without sacrificing yield. The use of soil moisture sensors, a commercial irrigation scheduler, and a free irrigation scheduler to determine irrigation amounts, were compared with the rates chosen by farmers. At some farms, the SIS methods maintained yield with 10-15% less irrigation. These benefits were usually when precipitation was high, which the SIS methods accounted for well. Surface irrigators found that sensors helped reduce irrigation application by correctly timing the cutoff, saving them time, water, and money. Automation to implement surge irrigation increased irrigation use efficiency by 43% the first year, but had less drastic results in the final year, likely due to the severity of an ongoing drought. These collective results demonstrate that simple water optimization techniques could reduce irrigation diversions by 15 and possibly up to 25% or more in some cases

Water-use efficiency on commercial wheat farms in Zimbabwe

A conference paper on wheat production in Zimbabwe in the period before Zimbabwe's land reform programmeWheat is grown commercially in Zimbabwe as a fully-irrigated winter crop (May-September) in the highveld, middleveld and lowveld on medium-to-heavy textured soils. Approximately 75% of the commercial wheat farmers are located in the Hunyani and Mazowe Valleys of the highveld (mean elevation of 1442m) and the rest are scattered in the middleveld and lowveld, with a significant concentration in the lowveld (mean elevation of 443m) In Zimbabwe, winter wheat is irrigated by overhead sprinkler systems. Virtually all farmers hand move their irrigation equipment, although about four farmers are experimenting with low-pressure centre pivot systems.The research supporting the preparation the proceedings papers was financed by the U.S. Agency for International Development, Bureau of Science and Technology; Bureau for Africa; and the Southern Africa Regional Programme

Smart irrigation of agricultural crops

This article provides an overview of the concept of “smart irrigation” and a review of the results of research conducted abroad on smart irrigation. Therefore, research has been analyzed both analytical and practical aspects of the crops. It makes analyses on different research points to get more detailed information as a whole