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Agricultural Water Management: Strategies for Improving Irrigation Efficiency

A special issue of Water (ISSN 2073-4441). This special issue belongs to the section "Water, Agriculture and Aquaculture".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (20 February 2022) | Viewed by 3199

Special Issue Editors


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Guest Editor
Department of Agricultural, Environmental and Food Sciences, University of Molise, 86100 Campobasso, Italy
Interests: agriculture; crop management; horticultural crops; irrigation; precision agriculture; remote sensing
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

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Guest Editor
Department of Agricultural, Environmental and Food Sciences (DAEFS), University of Molise, I-86100 Campobasso, Italy
Interests: agronomy; precision agriculture; crop yield; fertilization; irrigation; remote sensing; horticultural crops; vegetation indices
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

The civil, industrial and agricultural sectors are in strong competition for the use of water, particularly for blue water, which is less than 1% of the available water worldwide. The increased scarcity of water resources should lead to improved efficiency of wastewater treatment. Wastewater reuse will become a priority as climate change accelerates. Thus, water and wastewater management has become a key area, both for research and practice. In addition, agriculture is also called upon to rationalize the use of resources, regardless of the availability of water resources.

In arid environments, crops are very often in conditions of water and salt stress; in humid areas, over-irrigation is a major cause of ground pollution. Every single drop of water is considered essential, which is demonstrated in the recently coined phrase more crop per drop, which became more dollars per drop, then more jobs per drop, namely, water use efficiency (WUE). Water use efficiency (WUE) was initially introduced by Briggs and Shantz (1913) where the researchers considered the relationship between water use and plant productivity. They developed the concept of WUE in order to consider the biomass quantity acquired per unit of water available for the crop.

However, WUE is a complex composite governed by many genes and environmental responses, and for these reasons, WUE is often defined differently in relation to the different field of experts of science.

In the present Special Issue, plant and crop breeders, plant and crop physiologists, agricultural engineering, engineers, economists, and sociologists are invited to give their contributions for improving WUE and sustainability at different levels, moving from DNA to cells, to leaf, to canopy, to district level.

Prof. Dr. Arturo Alvino
Prof. Dr. Stefano Marino
Guest Editors

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Keywords

  • crop breeders
  • crop physiologists
  • agricultural engineering
  • engineering
  • economists
  • sociologists

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Published Papers (1 paper)

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Research

18 pages, 4124 KiB  
Article
Different Irrigation Pressure and Filter on Emitter Clogging in Drip Phosphate Fertigation Systems
by Chunye Liu, Rui Wang, Wene Wang, Xiaotao Hu, Wanying Wu and Fulai Liu
Water 2022, 14(6), 853; https://doi.org/10.3390/w14060853 - 9 Mar 2022
Cited by 4 | Viewed by 2406
Abstract
Irrigation pressures and filters have a significant influence on emitter clogging in drip fertigation systems. Exploring the anti-clogging performance of emitters at different irrigation pressures (80, 90, 100 kPa; 40, 50, 60 kPa) and filters (the disc filter with an aperture of 125 [...] Read more.
Irrigation pressures and filters have a significant influence on emitter clogging in drip fertigation systems. Exploring the anti-clogging performance of emitters at different irrigation pressures (80, 90, 100 kPa; 40, 50, 60 kPa) and filters (the disc filter with an aperture of 125 μm, the screen filter with an aperture of 125μm, and the screen filter with an aperture of 200 μm) can provide suitable guidance for the design and operation of drip fertigation systems. The average relative discharge (Dra), the Christiansen uniformity coefficient (CU), and the differential pressure (DP) were analyzed to study the anti-clogging performance of flat emitters (FE) and labyrinth emitters (LE). Meanwhile, the scanning electron microscope and energy dispersive spectrometer were used to observe the surface morphology and chemical composition of clogging substances in filters and emitters. Results showed that the irrigation pressure of 90 and 50 kPa did not cause a significant decrease in Dra, and the Dra of two types of emitters were all great than 95.22%. When the irrigation pressure was 80 and 40 kPa, the Dra decreased significantly (73.48–78.71%, 81.3–83.6% for FE and LE). The CU values of emitters were all greater than 90% except for the irrigation pressures of 80 and 40 kPa. The relative Dra and CU of LE were greater than those of FE, indicating that the LE had a better anti-clogging performance compared with the FE. The decrease in DP reflected an increase in the emitter clogging degree. Meanwhile, irrigation pressures and the interaction between irrigation pressures and filters imposed a significant effect on the CU at a significance level of p < 0.05, p < 0.01, respectively. The clogging process was mainly affected by physical and chemical factors, and the generated clogging substances included phosphate fertilizer, silicate, carbonate, and phosphate precipitations. In conclusion, the best operation mode of phosphate fertilizer in drip fertigation systems was to use the disc filter with an aperture of 125 μm and the LE at the irrigation pressure of 50 kPa. An appropriate irrigation pressure combined with effective filters can reduce emitter clogging while saving water and fertilizer. Full article
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