IRRIGATION

Irrigation is the application of water to soil to supplement deficient rainfall to provide moisture
for plant growth.

Arable Land is land that, when properly prepared for agriculture, will have a sufficient yield to
justify its development.

Irrigable Land is arable land for which a water supply is available.

Soil Characteristics Suitable for Irrigation Farming

1. Soil must have a reasonably high water-holding capacity and must be readily penetrable by
water.
2. Infiltration rate should be low enough to avoid excessive loss of water by percolation below
the root zone.
3. The soil must be deep enough to allow root development and permit drainage.
4. Soil must be free of black alkali, a sodium-saturated condition, and free of salts not
susceptible to removal by leaching.
5. It must have an adequate supply of plant nutrients and free of toxic elements.
6. Slopes should be such that excessive erosion will not occur.

1.0 Soil-Water Relationships

Water applied during irrigation enters the soil, and plants in turn extract water from the soil
for their growth. The soil serves as a reservoir in which water is stored for use by plants
between irrigations.

Field capacity is the moisture content of the soil after free drainage has removed most of the
gravity water.

Permanent wilting point is the moisture content at which plants can no longer extract
sufficient water for growth from the soil.

Available water is the difference between field capacity and wilting point that is useful to
plants.

An efficient irrigation procedure is to apply water when the moisture content of the soil
approaches the wilting point in an amount sufficient to raise the soil moisture to field capacity
within the root zone.

2.0 Water Requirements for Irrigation

2.1 Crop-Irrigation Requirement

• The crop irrigation requirement is the portion of the consumptive use that must be
supplied by irrigation. It is the consumptive use minus the effective precipitation or qc =
Uc - Peff.
• It is necessary to determine monthly amounts of the crop-irrigation requirement in order
to design a distribution system capable of delivering the water required in the period of
highest demand.
 2.2 Farm-Delivery Requirement

• Farm delivery losses include deep seepage and surface runoff.

• In light sandy soils without an impermeable subsoil, a considerable amount of water
percolate downward beyond the root zone and become useless for crops. Loss can be
minimized by applying small amounts of water (ie. trickle irrigation or sprinkler
irrigation) so that the storage capacity of the soil reservoir is not exceeded.
• Irrigation water applied at a rate in excess of infiltration capacity may flow across the
field and wasted as surface runoff.
• Farm delivery requirement is expressed as qf = (Uc - Peff)/(1 – Lf) where Uc is the
consumptive use, Peff is the effective precipitation and Lf is the farm loss expressed as a
decimal.
• Farm irrigation efficiency is defined as (Uc - Peff)/ qf. Average efficiencies are usually
between 40 to 60 percent.

2.3 Diversion Requirement

• Water losses in delivery to the farm or so called conveyance losses consist of evaporation
from the canal, transpiration by vegetation along the canal bank, seepage from the canal,
and operational wastes.
• Operational wastes include water discharged through waterways, leakage past gates, and
losses from overflow or breakage of canal banks. The largest factor in conveyance loss is
seepage while evaporation and transpiration losses are small.
• The diversion requirement may be taken as the sum of the farm delivery and the
estimated conveyance loss.
• The diversion requirement is expressed as qd = qf/(1 – Lf) where Lc is the conveyance
loss in decimals.

3.0 Irrigation Methods

3.1 Flooding.

a) Wild flooding. Consists in turning the water onto natural slopes without much control
or prior preparation.

• Wasteful of water.
• Irrigation is quite uneven.
• Used mainly for pastures and fields of native hay on steep slopes where abundant
water is available and crop values do not warrant more expensive preparations.

b) Controlled flooding. May be accomplished from field ditches or by use of borders,

checks, or basins.

• Adaptable to lands with topography too irregular for other flooding methods.
• Relatively inexpensive since it requires a minimum preparation.
• Ditch spacing and flow rate should be such that the water will just infiltrate in the
time it is flowing across the field.
• Preparation of land for border-strip irrigation is more expensive than ordinary
flooding but may be offset by a decrease in water waste due to improved control.
 • Check flooding is accomplished by turning water into relatively level plots, or
checks, surrounded by levees. It is useful in very permeable soils where excessive
percolation might occur near a supply ditch and where infiltration would be
inadequate in the time required for the flow to cross the field.
• Basin flooding is check flooding adapted to orchards. Portable pipes or large hoses
are often used in place of ditches for conveying water to the basins.

3.2 Furrow Irrigation.

• Widely used for row crops, and small furrows (narrow ditch between row of plants)
called corrugations used for forage crops such as alfalfa.
• An important advantage of the furrow method is that only 0.2 to 0.5 as much surface area
is wetted during irrigation as compared with flooding.
• Adapted to lands of irregular topography and customarily the furrows are run normal to
the contours.
• Furrows spacing is determined by proper spacing of plants and vary from 10 to 30 cm
deep and may be as much as 500 m long. Excessively long furrows may result in too
much percolation near the upper end and too little water at the downslope end.
• Water may be diverted by an opening in the bank of the supply ditch or using siphons
made of plastic or aluminum tubing about 5 cm in diameter.

3.3 Sprinkler Irrigation.

• Sprinkler irrigation requires a pressurized system. Pressure may be provided by gravity

flow from a high-elevation reservoir or directly from a pump.
• Offers a means of irrigating areas whose topography is so irregular that they prevent the
use of any surface irrigation methods.
• Sprinkling may be accomplished by a hand-move system, a solid-set system, side-roll
system, and a center-pivot system.
• Sprinkler systems must be carefully designed so that water is distributed as evenly as
possible over the irrigated fields.

3.4 Sub-irrigation.

• Required conditions are a permeable soil in the root zone, underlain by an impermeable
horizon or a high water table.
• Water is delivered to the field ditches spaced 15 to 30 cm apart and allowed to seep into
the ground to maintain the water table at a height such that water from the capillary fringe
is available to the crops.
• Low flow rates are necessary in the supply ditches and free drainage of water is permitted
either naturally or with drainage works to avoid waterlogging of the fields.
• Results in a minimum evaporation loss and surface waste and requires little field
preparation and labor.

3.5 Trickle or Drip Irrigation.

 • In trickle irrigation, a perforated plastic pipe is laid along the ground at the base of a row
of plants.
• The perforations are designed to emit a trickle and spaced to produce a wetted strip along
the crop row or a wetted bulb at each plant.
• The main advantage of trickle irrigation is the excellent control, since water can be
applied at a rate close to the rate of consumption by the plant.
• Nutrients can be applied directly to the plant roots by adding liquid fertilizer to the water.
• Investment costs in trickle irrigation are high but labor costs are low once the system is
set up.

4.0 Irrigation Systems and Structures.

Hydraulic structures in a typical irrigation system may include:

a) Dams
b) Spillways
c) Diversion Works
d) Canals
e) Ditches
f) Wells
g) Pumps
h) Pipelines

Canals or pipelines are used to convey water from point of diversion to the irrigated farm.
Pipelines are more costly while canals result in large water loss due to seepage.

The capacity required of the delivery system depends on the size of the area to be irrigated, the
type of crop, the effective precipitation and the irrigation scheduling program.

Farm ditches must be at sufficient elevation to permit gravity flow to the field.

Gates for regulating flows in the ditch system may be of wood, steel, or concrete. To raise the
level of water in a ditch to make diversion into a field possible, a check may be required.

Division boxes are used to distribute flow to several channels.

To avoid loss of water and annual cost of ditch construction, concrete pipe is used for permanent
underground installation with riser pipes at intervals to bring the water to the surface.

Portable steel and aluminum pipe are also employed for irrigation.

Pipes with orifices at intervals along their length are used to distribute water to furrows. Small
sheet-metal gates close off orifices not in use.

Portable pipe is often used to carry water from a well to a field.