Irrigation Strategies for Sustainable Environmental and Influence on Human Health

Liu, F.

doi:10.1016/b978-0-444-52272-6.00514-6

Cited by 5 publications

(5 citation statements)

References 8 publications

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“…WBs are inherently low-tech and scalable and appear well-suited to a variety of urban agriculture settings.Horticulturae 2016, 2, 13 2 of 18 to rural water supplies for commercial horticulture [14,15]. There is therefore a great interest in the development of efficient irrigation systems which can secure urban water resources and provide urban gardeners with an economically efficient means of irrigation that is not technologically complex [16][17][18].Although improved practices exist for efficient crop irrigation in commercial farm management, there has been limited adoption of these techniques in urban areas due to the barriers of cost and knowledge to maintain them [18]. In urban gardens, the issues principally revolve around determining when and how much water needs to be applied to crops.…”

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confidence: 99%

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Evaluating the Efficiency of Wicking Bed Irrigation Systems for Small-Scale Urban Agriculture

2016

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A wicking bed (WB) is a plant driven system where plants receive water through capillary rise from a self-contained coarse material-filled subsoil reservoir. WBs have been widely promoted as a water-efficient irrigation solution for small-scale and urban food gardens. However, little published research exists to support popular claims about their effectiveness. In this study, the performance of WBs was compared with best-practice, precision surface irrigation in terms of water use efficiency (WUE), fruit yield, fruit quality and labour input, using tomato (Solanum lycopersicum) as the experimental crop. The influence of WB design variables (reservoir depths and soil bed depths) was tested. Results showed that WBs performed as well or better than precision surface irrigated pots, showing statistically significant improvement in WUE, yield and fruit quality. The results also suggest an optimum design exists for soil depth (where 300 mm outperformed 600 mm) but not reservoir depth (no difference between 150 and 300 mm). The WBs were more labour efficient, requiring significantly less frequent watering to achieve the same or better WUE. WBs are inherently low-tech and scalable and appear well-suited to a variety of urban agriculture settings.Horticulturae 2016, 2, 13 2 of 18 to rural water supplies for commercial horticulture [14,15]. There is therefore a great interest in the development of efficient irrigation systems which can secure urban water resources and provide urban gardeners with an economically efficient means of irrigation that is not technologically complex [16][17][18].Although improved practices exist for efficient crop irrigation in commercial farm management, there has been limited adoption of these techniques in urban areas due to the barriers of cost and knowledge to maintain them [18]. In urban gardens, the issues principally revolve around determining when and how much water needs to be applied to crops. For example, precision irrigation scheduling has been widely applied for efficient irrigation of large-scale monoculture crops. At the domestic and community garden scale, however, plants tend to be mixed and irrigation cannot be optimally scheduled to meet the needs of multiple crop water use patterns [19,20]. As a result, homeowners frequently apply more water than necessary, which leads to water loss as subsoil drainage [21]. Another major problem for urban growers is the labour invested in watering which may conflict with other activities [22]. In some regions, those interested in growing crops are not able to do so due to the presence of legacy contamination [23] or a shallow water table [24].Capillary wick irrigation has been investigated for some years as a method to deliver water to plants in container gardens [25]. Existing approaches include wicking mats, self-watering pots, and sub-irrigated planters [24,26]. The more recent "wicking bed" (WB) [27] has been characterized by a saturated media-filled reservoir beneath an unsaturated soil (root zone). Water is delivered by capillary acti...

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confidence: 99%

“…Horticulturae 2016, 2, 13 2 of 18 to rural water supplies for commercial horticulture [14,15]. There is therefore a great interest in the development of efficient irrigation systems which can secure urban water resources and provide urban gardeners with an economically efficient means of irrigation that is not technologically complex [16][17][18].…”

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confidence: 99%

Evaluating the Efficiency of Wicking Bed Irrigation Systems for Small-Scale Urban Agriculture

2016

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“…The "sustainable intensification" of agricultural practices and technological transfer to under-yielding nations has been suggested as a means to increase the global efficiency of agriculture production (Tilman et al, 2011;Smith, 2013). This includes, for example, the introduction of advanced technologies for irrigation (Liu, 2011), the management of nutrient cycles (Mueller et al, 2012) and the use of all the knowledge generated in the field of agronomy and plant science (Dor e et al, 2011). These measures also result in a decrease in the amount of land required to produce a unit of agricultural product.…”

Section: Efficiency Strategymentioning

confidence: 98%

Meat consumption and production – analysis of efficiency, sufficiency and consistency of global trends

Allievi

Vinnari

Luukkanen

2015

Journal of Cleaner Production

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“…A great challenge for human society is the production of enough food to feed a growing population, which is highly dependent on the expansion of irrigated agricultural land (Liu 2011). However, the use of innovative practices that increase the efficiency of water use is a constant challenge toward the goal of food security (Liu 2011;Levidow et al 2014). Forages are a major component of global agroecosystems that contribute significantly to world food production.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Yield parameters and water productivity of tropical and overseeded winter forages

Sanches¹,

Souza²,

Jesus³

et al. 2020

Int J Innov Educ Res

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Intensive pasture exploitation with tropical forages is one of the most efficient forms ruminant production. However, the results depends on the knowledge about these forages and the experience in its management. The objective of this work was to evaluate water productivity (WP) and yield parameters of Megathyrsus maximum cv. Mombaça “Guinea grass” and Cynodon spp. “Bermuda grass”, in single culture and overseeded with oats + ryegrass in autumn/winter period. Irrigation management was done considering a depletion factor of 0.3 (70% of the humidity the field capacity). The experimental design was a randomized complete block design with four replications, in which the forages are the treatments with evaluation at the time of the cycles. For all evaluated parameters, the best results were obtained with the Guinea grass in exclusive cultivation. The TFP (Total Forage Productivity) of Guinea grass was superior to Bermuda grass (59.3 and 30.2 Mg ha-1, respectively), in accordance with its average LAI (Leaf area index) values of 4.8 and 2.5, respectively. The most efficient use of water occurred for Guinea grass in exclusive cultivation, and the intercropped crops did not present increases in the WP. In the autumn/winter period, the accumulated TFP of the exclusive crop of Guinea grass was higher than the other crops. However, the SDM of Bermuda grass was higher than the other crops. In winter, the highest LAI occurred in Guinea grass in exclusive cultivation, followed by the overseeded Guinea grass, 4.8 and 4.5, respectively. Consortia did not increase forage yield during the winter. The consortiums did not increase forage yield during the winter.

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Irrigation Strategies for Sustainable Environmental and Influence on Human Health

Cited by 5 publications

References 8 publications

Evaluating the Efficiency of Wicking Bed Irrigation Systems for Small-Scale Urban Agriculture

Evaluating the Efficiency of Wicking Bed Irrigation Systems for Small-Scale Urban Agriculture

Meat consumption and production – analysis of efficiency, sufficiency and consistency of global trends

Yield parameters and water productivity of tropical and overseeded winter forages

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