Soil‐Plant System Response to Pulsed Drip Irrigation and Salinity

Abstract

High‐frequency drip irrigation supplies water and nutrients at a rate that is close to plant uptake, thus enhancing growth and production. In light of water scarcity in arid regions, marginal water is increasingly considered as a resource for agricultural production. The objective of this study was to investigate the combined effects of pulsed irrigation and water salinity on the response of the soil–plant system. As a test crop, bell pepper (Capsicum annuum L.) was cultivated in a screenhouse and drip irrigated daily (D) and at high frequency (P) with saline (S) and fresh (F) water. Simultaneous monitoring of meteorological, physiological, soil physical, plant and soil chemical, and yield data was performed during the experiment. Most physiological parameters were negatively affected by high water salinity. No consistent effect of the irrigation frequency was found on the overall season, although pulsed irrigation led to higher plant weight and leaf area at the early stages of plant growth. The distinct patterns of soil water content for the two irrigation frequencies are presented. Salinity in the root zone was higher under pulsed irrigation, an observation that is supported by measured leaf chloride content and tensiometer readings indicating that the once daily application may have more efficiently removed salts from the top soil. Yield, fruit weight, and irrigation water use efficiency (IWUE) were highest under once daily irrigation with fresh water. High‐frequency irrigation led to higher Mn concentrations in leaves and fruits and increased concentrations of Cl, N, and P in leaves, confirming earlier conclusions on improved P mobilization and uptake under pulsed irrigation.

Evaluation of water movement and nitrate dynamics in a lysimeter planted with an orange tree

“…Other studies have also reported good performance of this software for various soil, water, and crop conditions under pressurised irrigation systems (e.g., Assouline et al, 2006;Ajdary et al, 2007;Patel and Rajput, 2008;Phogat et al, 2012Phogat et al, , 2013Ramos et al, 2012).…”

“…HYDRUS 2D/3D (Šimůnek et al, 2008, 2011) has been used extensively for evaluating the effects of soil hydraulic properties, soil layering, dripper discharge rates, irrigation frequency and quality, timing of nutrient applications on wetting patterns and solute distribution (e.g., Cote et al, 2003;Gärdenäs et al, 2005;Assouline et al, 2006;Hanson et al, 2006;Ajdary et al, 2007;Patel and Rajput, 2008;Šimůnek and Hopmans, 2009;Phogat et al, 2009Phogat et al, , 2010Phogat et al, , 2012Phogat et al, , 2013Li and Liu, 2011;Ramos et al, 2012) because it has the capability to analyse water flow and nutrient transport in multiple spatial dimensions (Cote et al, 2003).…”

Analysis of AET and yield predictions under surface and buried drip irrigation systems using the Crop Model PILOTE and Hydrus-2D

“…The ability of Hydrus-2D for simulating the water transfer process under drip irrigation has been widely demonstrated on bare and cultivated soils (Vrugt et al, 2001;Skaggs et al, 2004;Assouline et al, 2006;Arbat et al, 2008;Patel and Rajput, 2008). The ability of this model for simulating the water transfer process for the corn case at Lavalette has been widely demonstrated in Mailhol et al (2001), Wöhling and Mailhol (2007) for furrow irrigation, and by Mubarak et al, (2009b) for DI.…”

Modelling the impact of pulsing of drip irrigation on the water and salinity dynamics in soil in relation to water uptake by an almond tree

“…Short duration (10 to 24 hr) modelling studies [1,2] found that pulsed irrigation produced similar water content regimes to micro drip and slightly increased the wetted radius and depth compared with continuous irrigation. However, Elmaloglou and Diamantopoulos [3] reported a deeper wetting front for pulsed than for continuous irrigation with the same application depth.…”

“…However, due to some technical limitations (e.g. discharge and operation pressure, clogging) application of low discharge rates is problematic [1]. There are spatial and application interventions that can be used in drip irrigation, such as pulsing of water, which may produce similar moisture and solute distribution in the soil to using low discharge rates.…”