A Feasibility Study of Variable Rate Irrigation in Black Sea Area: Water and Energy Saving from the Application

Abstract

Irrigation contributes a large part of the costs and energy consumption of irrigated crops of the area. Variable rate technology (VR) can lead to inputs saving in agriculture. Precision agriculture (PA) has proved that most fields are not homogeneous and their input requirements differ considerably in different parts of the field. In most fields, even small ones, there is a high variability of soil properties and topography. Conventional agriculture, by applying inputs at the same rate in the entire field, causes over and under – applications. This results either in deficit of inputs or in waste of them. Over-application causes usually problems to the environment. High spatial and temporal variability exists in yields and in other properties like soil texture. Different soil types can store different amounts of water at the beginning of the season and require different water application amounts and practices. In this study, A FAO water application model was applied in fields with distinctive soil texture zones of fields in the Regions of Tekirdağ, Turkey and Karditsa (Thesally), Greece. The calculation shows a potential to save between 2.56 to 7.3 % of water in these fields. An estimation of the total water and energy saving in Karditsa and Trakya have shown very promising results. It is proved that using VRI technology offers a potential of energy saving giving an additional benefit to the proposed practice. An energy saving from 3000 to 17000 toe (tons of oil equivellent) can be achieved by the introduction of VRI in Karditsa (Thesally). The saving in Trakya is lower due to the lower irrigated area (62500 ha). In the present paper, a technical description and features of the VRI technology for the lineer travelling sprinkler and cost-benefit of the system were also presented