Electricity supply to irrigation systems for crops away from urban areas

Water scarcity is a phenomenon that is occurring more and more frequently in larger areas of Europe. As a result of drought, there are significant drops in yields. As demand for food continues to rise, it is becoming necessary to bring about a substantial increase in crop production. The best solution to water scarcity appears to be irrigation for crops that are particularly sensitive to drought. Today, many technical solutions are used to supply and distribute water to crops. The optimal solution is drip irrigation, which makes it possible to deliver water directly to the plant root system to save melting freshwater resources. In the article special attention was paid to methods of supplying electricity to power irrigation pumps. The analysis was made for areas with a significant distance between the agricultural land and the urbanised area (which has water and electricity). The authors have selected the parameters of an off-grid photovoltaic mini-hydropower plant with energy storage (with a power of 1.36 kW). An analysis was made of the profitability of such an investment and a comparison with other types of power supply. Based on the performed calculations, a prototype power supply system equipped with photovoltaic panels was made to show the real performance of the proposed system. The tests carried out showed that the irrigation pump will be powered most of the time with a voltage whose parameters will be very close to the nominal ones

Effect of Fertilisation Regime on Maise Yields

Using natural fertilisers in agriculture improves quantity and quality yields. They introduce macronutrients (nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium) and micronutrients into the soil. Enriching the soil with organic substances through fertilisation with digestates requires the farmer to have considerable knowledge and accuracy in dosing due to the need to comply with permissible concentrations of macronutrients. The availability of nutrients in a digestate is closely dependent on the substrates used in the biogas plant, and it cannot be stated unequivocally that better yields of field crops will be achieved by using it as manure. Therefore, the authors conducted a two-year study of the effect of the fertilisation method on maise yields. Based on the research carried out, the fertiliser suitability of the digest was confirmed. Plants fertilised with it were characterised by the highest (compared to other fertilisation methods) grain yield (of 12.07 Mg per hectare on average). In addition, they were characterised by adequate plant height (3.15 m on average). The observations also indicate good emergence and satisfactory early vigour