Abstract

An automatic furrow irrigation system based on soil moisture sensing was installed and tested to assess its field performance. An electronic tensiometer monitored the prevailing soil moisture status and switched on a solenoid valve commencing irrigation. Once irrigation started the instrument kept on monitoring the soil moisture level and when it reached zero tension, it switched off irrigation. The automatic irrigation system was used to irrigate maize (CO 1). Conventional furrow irrigation method was kept as a control. The system performed well and it could save nearly 20% of water compared to conventional furrow irrigation. Grain yield of both the crops were only marginal different. Besides, water use efficiency of automatically irrigated crop (63.14 kg/ha/cm) was considerably higher than of conventional method (51.43 kg/ha/cm).

Keywords: Automatic irrigation, Soil moisture tension, Response time, Electronic tensiometer.