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An industry first utilising worlds best practice for Drip Irrigation

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Next Generation Drip Irrigation System

Drip Irrigation

Drip irrigation has now been used successfully for decades as our best solution to crop irrigation efficiency. Compared to flood irrigation it is an important technology to significantly increase the water efficiency and uniformity of yields in irrigated cropping.

Irrigation Efficiency v Energy Efficiency

A flood irrigation system will most often just use gravity (free energy) to provide water distribution to the crop. A drip irrigation system, will usually require a significant energy input to create pressurised water to push through a filtration system, a pipe distribution network and most importantly the DRIP EMITTERS along the plant row.

Drip Tube Emitters – New v Old School

Pressure compensating emitters (PC emitters) provide a uniform application rate over a wide range of pressures. They become the standard for most drip irrigation systems for the last 15 years. PC emitters are more complicated, more prone to clogging, have a lower lifespan and are more expensive than non-compensated emitters to manufacture. On the positive of sorts, they make the hydraulic design of a drip irrigation system very simple if you can afford to ignore ENERGY input costs. The higher the pressure the system runs at, the easier it is to obtain uniformity albeit very inefficiently.
The original drip tube emitters (now called non-compensating) still exist and are mostly used in annual crops. They are elegant in their design, cost-effective and reliable – no moving parts, with wider flow passages than pressure compensating emitters. Importantly, they are variable in their flow rate output based on mathematics and pressure.

Introducing SolarDrip Irrigation System

SolarDrip is the next generation of applying a simple formula for plant water usage – Solar Radiation is a valid estimate for plant water usage throughout a growing season.

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= No Pumping Costs

Case Study

Mac Burge | Citrus Grower | Riverina District, NSW

Daily Power Consumption

The Challenge

Mac Burge, Citrus Farmer located in the Riverina, NSW has an 18.6ha (50 acres) established citrus orchard that requires a drip irrigation system with a few specific features and an industry first configuration.

Current Configuration

Inefficiently flood irrigated using gravity pipelines and risers
No electrical power available & electrical infrastructure upgrade unviable
The client wants to be carbon neutral without generator back-up
Solar power is the most viable power source
However, existing drip irrigation systems require constant pressure which is difficult to achieve with solar due to continuously varying solar radiation levels throughout the day

Planning

Calculate the maximum application rate for the crop, using historical evapotranspiration (ET0) data x maximum variable crop factor for citrus = in this case, 8.6mm/hectare/day
Required maximum daily water volume = 18.6 ha x 8.6 mm/day = 1.6 Mg/L per day
Typically, maximum daily plant water usage occurs in Australian summers – generally for up to 30% of a month (approx. 10 days)
To ensure the system can exceed the maximum monthly requirements, it is configured to provide an average daily output of 1.6 Mg/L per day
Careful planning and sizing of the solar panel configuration is required to maximise lowest radiation levels at the start and end of the day

Solution

Design and deploy an autonomous, solar-powered, drip irrigation system utilising non-pressure compensating emitters. In this situation, Metzer LIN driptube.
Technically, as a component of ETo, solar radiation contributes around 88% of its value. Other components influencing ET0 including wind, temperature and humidity make up for the remaining 12% ± 4.6%.
It is, therefore, reasonable to conclude that a drip irrigation system application rate driven purely by solar radiation is a valid way to estimate plant water usage over the year.