Assessing the efficiency of drip irrigation technology to increase agricultural production yield and save water in arava valley, israel

THAI NGUYEN UNIVERSITY UNIVERSITY OF AGRICULTURE AND FORESTRY NGUYEN PHONG LAM BACHELOR THESIS ASSESSING THE EFFICIENCY OF DRIP IRRIGATION TECHNOLOGY TO INCREASE TOMATO YIELD AND SAVE WATER IN ARAVA VALLEY, ISRAEL Study Mode: Full time Major: Environmental Science and Management Faculty: International Programs Office Batch: K48 Thai Nguyen, 2021 i DOCUMENTATION PAGE WITH ABSTRACT Thai Nguyen University of Agriculture and Forestry Degree Program Student name Student ID Thesis Title Supervisor (s) Bachelor of Environmental Science and Management Nguyen Phong Lam DTN1654290008 Assessing the efficiency of drip irrigation technology to increase agricultural production yield and save water in Arava Valley, Israel Dr Bui Quang Binh Supervisor’s Signature Abstract: Freshwater is the main water resource for agriculture activities in Israel and in the world in general, but it has been depressed considerably because of pollution and overexploitation The research is implemented to optimize water use in agriculture activities by applying a drip irrigation system in growing tomatoes It also assessed the efficiency of the drip irrigation model by compared to other irrigation methods, namely sprinkler irrigation system The experiment was conducted in a tomato field of Natureza Farm, Arava Valley, Israel There were 300 m2 of greenhouse separated into two equal parts to set up the experiment One part was installed drip irrigation system, and another was set up a sprinkler irrigation system The tomato variety and environmental conditions were the same for both irrigation methods The research used observation, method of ii data collection, measurement method, and document research The results indicated that those tomatoes applied drip irrigation system would use less 12.71 m3 over 150 m2 experiment area than when used sprinkler irrigation system Additionally, tomatoes applied drip irrigation produced more yield with about 2477 kg compared to 2222 kg produced by using sprinkler system The experiment also pointed out that the water use efficiency index of the sprinkler system was lower than drip irrigation about 8.5 and 10.08 in the order given Drip irrigation performed better than sprinkler irrigation in terms of yield and water saving Keywords: Drip irrigation, Sprinkler system, Water Use Efficiency, Tomato, Natureza, Israel The number of pages: Date of Submission: 5th November 2021 iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENT During the time studying in the university, doing the internship is very meaningful for every student The internship helps students are able to apply the knowledge and theories to practical situations and accumulate experiences for the jobs in the future Throughout the period of the internship in Israel, I received much conscientious support and help which guide me to open my mind and finish my project First, I would like to express my gratitude to the Thai Nguyen University of Agriculture and Forestry, the International Training Center, the Advance Education Program who created a wonderful opportunity for me to first time go abroad and take an internship in Israel - a nation with modern agriculture technology in the world Second, I sincerely thank my supervisor, Dr Bui Quang Binh, who guide and instruct me to overcome the difficulties and provide answers to my questions during the research With the enthusiastic support of my supervisor, I could complete my research successfully Third, I would like to express my appreciation to Mr David Ohana, Mr Ohad Finer- the big bosses of Natureza company who gave me a chance to the project on their farm Besides, I would like to thank Mr Asap- a manager of Natureza company, who provided me with lots of useful information for my project Lastly, I would like to express my gratitude to the AICAT center and my supervisor in AICAT, Mrs Hadas, who gave me advice and taught me many things about agriculture in Israel iv Since the limitation of my knowledge, experience, and time, the research cannot avoid the omission I really hope to receive the comment and contribution to complete my research v TABLE OF CONTENTS LIST OF FIGURES LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS PART I INTRODUCTION 1.1 Research rationale 1.2 Research’s objectives 1.2.1 Objectives 1.2.2 Professional expertise 10 1.3 Research questions and hypotheses 10 1.4 Limitations 11 PART II LITERATURE REVIEW 13 PART III MATERIALS AND METHODS 17 3.1 Experiment location 17 3.2 Preparing before cultivation 18 3.3 Installation of Drip Irrigation 19 3.4 Installation of Sprinkler Irrigation 21 3.5 Ikram tomato variety 22 3.6 Water Saving 24 3.7 Yield of tomatoes 25 3.8 Water Use Efficiency 26 PART IV RESULTS 28 4.1 Water applied for irrigation 28 4.2 Yield of crop 31 4.3 Water use efficiency 34 PART V DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION 36 5.1 Discussion 36 5.2 Conclusion 38 5.3 Suggestions 40 REFERENCES 42 vi LIST OF FIGURES Figure Administrative map of Israel Figure Moshav Idan Figure The experiment location, Farm A Dudu, Moshav Idan, Israel 18 Figure The pump station of Natureza farm 20 Figure A cluster of Ikram tomato variety 23 Figure Tomatoes was weighed by electric scale 26 Figure The water irrigated by drip and sprinkler irrigation methods 29 Figure The total water irrigated for experiment 30 Figure The total water used of drip over sprinkler irrigation in one hectare 31 Figure 10 The crop yield of tomato by drip and sprinkler irrigation methods 32 Figure 11 The yield of tomatoes for drip and sprinkler irrigation system in experiment 33 Figure 12 Total yield of tomato of drip over sprinkler irrigation system in one hectare 34 Figure 13 The Water Use Efficiency (WUE) in drip over sprinkler irrigation 35 LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS WUE - Water Use Efficiency WWF - World Wildlife Fund JNF - Jewish National Fund PART I INTRODUCTION 1.1 Research rationale Water is an essential factor for life of millions creature and the human on the Earth Seventy percent of our planet is covered by water, it is easy to think that the water is plentiful, and the water shortage problem will never happen in our beautiful planet (WWF, n.d) Nonetheless, the truth is most of water is salt water, the water which we drink, cook, or irrigate for the farm is fresh water It accounts for only about 2.5% of water is fresh and just 1% of it can be used and easy to accessible, the rest of water is trapped in frozen glaciers or snowfield and unavailable for use (National Geographic, n.d) Nowadays, under the pressure of population explosion with about 7.87 billion people, the demand of water for life, agriculture activities, industrial are considerable (Worldometer, 2021) According to WWF, there is approximately 1.1 billion people access to the water hardly around the world, while 2.7 billion people must use famine water for at least one month yearly and many other people are using polluted water (WWF, n.d) Furthermore, with the over exploitation of fresh water, human also gives the negative impacts to the environment and pollutes the water in the nature Besides the polluted water unavailable to use, it has a great number of rivers, lakes and aquifers are drying up Half of wetland areas and water ecosystems in the Earth are shrinking and disappearing (WWF, n.d) The weather in many areas is altered under the impact of climate change, as the result is drought phenomena concurrent happen causing water scarcity problem It is predicted that this problem will become more terrible and two-thirds of people in our planet may suffer extreme water shortage and the more ecosystems can disappear by 2025 (WWF, n.d) Especially for arid areas where has typical characteristics of very high temperature, lower rainfall and evapotranspiration, and dry climate, finding water is a tough issue The arid areas account for 35% of land areas on the Earth, more than 20% of the world population, and many other terrestrial biomes live there (Tchakerian, 2015) Those areas are also increasingly extended and take large portion of the Earth surface along with the decrease of the amount of freshwater Particularly, there are many countries and regions belong to arid areas or very drought like Israel, it is hard to live and survive in those areas, not to mention develop agriculture Seeking solutions to save water and increase the agriculture production yield are crucial to ensure enough water for use and food security The drip irrigation is a most important invention of last century which have a strong influence on the development of agriculture in arid areas in particular and in the world in general The research will focus on assessing the efficiency of drip irrigation method to save water and increase yield of agriculture product Israel is a typical nation facing to extreme water shortage problem Established in 1948, the country of Jewish people got many difficult to survive and adapt to the harsh climate of arid areas The State of Israel is a country which located in the Middle East of Asia The total area of Israel is 22,145 sq.km and bordered to Lebanon in the north, Syria in northeast, Jordan in the east and Egypt in southwest (Israel Ministry of 16000 14045 14000 13198 12000 m3/ha 10000 8000 6000 4000 2000 Drip Sprinkler Figure The total water used of drip over sprinkler irrigation in one hectare 4.2 Yield of crop The tomatoes of experiment were harvested once per week from December of 2020 to May of 2021 As can be seen from the bar chart in figure 10, it shown the yield of tomato picked monthly in two different irrigation systems In general, the yield of tomato applied drip irrigation treatment was always higher than the sprinkler system Especially, the highest yield of tomato was in March with about 575.9 kg and 507.2 kg for drip irrigation and sprinkler irrigation respectively Similarly, in April witnessed a great number of tomatoes harvested about 532.8 kg used drip irrigation and 488 kg used sprinkler system By contrast, the lowest yield of tomato was in February in both irrigation system At that time, the weather was very cold, hence the growth and maturity of tomatoes became slowly On the other hand, the most difference of tomato yield between two irrigation systems was in the first month 31 harvesting Tomato yield in drip irrigation treatment had 77.5 kg higher than those tomatoes in sprinkler treatment 700.0 575.9 600.0 532.8 507.2 Kilogram 500.0 400.0 392.5 488.0 417.9 383.9 315.0 282.2 258.1 300.0 276.3 270.2 200.0 100.0 0.0 Dec Jan Feb Drip irrigation Mar Apr May Sprinkler Irrigation Figure 10 The crop yield of tomato by drip and sprinkler irrigation methods Additionally, the total yield of tomato in experiment used drip irrigation system was bigger with 2477.52 kg compared to 2222.28 kg in sprinkler irrigation method (figure 11) 32 3000 2500 2477.52 2222.28 Kilogram 2000 1500 1000 500 Drip Sprinkler Figure 11 The yield of tomatoes for drip and sprinkler irrigation system in experiment It was further calculated for one greenhouse farm (1ha) that the respective number of yields of tomato for drip and sprinkler irrigation system were 133052 kg and 119345 kg (figure 12) Obviously, tomato used sprinkler system had smaller yield than when used drip irrigation at the same condition The difference between two irrigation systems were approximate 14 tons In case of applying drip irrigation for a tomato farm with one hectare area, the yield of tomato may reach 10.3% higher than using sprinkler system 33 140000 133052 119345 120000 Kilogram 100000 80000 60000 40000 20000 Drip Sprinkler Figure 12 Total yield of tomato of drip over sprinkler irrigation system in one hectare 4.3 Water use efficiency After calculating of Water Use Efficiency, the results shown that there was a higher of water use efficiency with about 10.08 when used drip irrigation system (Figure 13) Otherwise, the sprinkler irrigation system obtained a lower water use efficiency about 8.5 (Figure 13) The difference between two irrigation systems were about 1.58 The reason causes better water use efficiency when applied drip irrigation than sprinkler may because of features and operation between two systems Drip irrigation put water directly in the root zones of tomato plants and not make outside root areas wet Thus, it optimized the water absorbability by tomato plants and the loss of water through evaporation and conveyance would be decreased On the other hand, water of sprinkler system was applied overhead of tomato plants similar shower, 34 so it made larger area around root zones wet and the plants could not absorb water in the most optimal way WUE 12 10.08 10 8.5 Drip Sprinkler Figure 13 The Water Use Efficiency (WUE) in drip over sprinkler irrigation 35 PART V DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION 5.1 Discussion In this study of assessing the efficiency of drip irrigation system on water saving and yield increase by compared with sprinkler irrigation system The results shown obviously that the possibility of water saving by using drip irrigation is better than sprinkler system during the season Particularly, the sprinkler system used more about 12.7 m3 water than drip irrigation in 300 m2 experiment, and more than 847 m3 in one hectare of tomato farm The amount of water per each irrigation time was different, depending on the weather conditions and the growth stages of crop plants Furthermore, the drip irrigation also performs higher efficiency compared to other traditional irrigation methods like furrow irrigation in some other research It also exposes more advantages than other irrigation methods such as irrigating at the right place and at the right time This reduces ineffective irrigation water and reduce the weed which growing around crop plants The yield of tomato was obtained higher when applied drip irrigation system on farm By the combination between irrigating water and injecting fertilizer directly to system for tomato plants, the tomatoes could uptake optimally needed amount of water and fertilizer Especially, the requirement of crop plants for water and fertilizer in each growth stages are not the same, the control system of drip irrigation could solve this problem and provide properly as the demand The water use efficiency also calculated to compare the efficiency between two irrigation systems It was computed based on the amount of water apply for tomatoes 36 over a season and the yield obtained by corresponding irrigation methods The results after calculation pointed out that the drip irrigation system has higher number of WUE than sprinkler system Obviously, with the smaller amount of water using and higher yield of tomatoes harvested by applied drip irrigation, this method obtained better efficiency when growing tomato in greenhouse than other irrigation method In the extreme weather of the Negev desert, the drip irrigation has contributed to solving two big problems which are saving fresh water and increase food production Besides the advantages of drip irrigation system about reduce the amount of irrigation water and increase the yield of crop It is also express some other benefits when apply the system for crop First, for those crops cultivating as rows such as vegetable, orchard, the drip irrigation is the most appropriate system Because each plant will be provided water and fertilizer by one or more emitters Second, the system also suitable for most soils and slopes of farm With each type of soil, the water require is different to providing enough wet and avoid waste water Since the drip irrigation can adjust pressure and the runoff rate in each emitters, thus the water can applied slowly or increase discharge rate at emitters based on soil properties and crops Third, the liquid fertilizer can be injected to drip irrigation system and irrigated directly to the root of plants under control of system, so the fertilizer can be used at high efficiency It also reduces weeds growing in farm because of no available water and fertilizer for them Furthermore, the operation cost is lessened because the drip irrigation work automatically, the system is connected to an app in the smartphone, 37 hence, the farmer can set up and adjust irrigation time and amount of water by only one click By contrast, the disadvantage point when applying drip irrigation on farms is water quality The water quality sometimes is a problem for drip irrigation Because the emitters of drip pipes are very small, the diameter of water holes ranges from 0.2 to 2.0 mm (Kumar, 2017) If the irrigation water is not clean or contains sediments, the emitters are easy to be blocked Therefore, the filtration system is very necessary for drip irrigation Furthermore, after finishing a crop season, they put a cleaning chemical compound into the pipes system to clean every sediment inside pipes and emitters before starting a new season On the other hand, although the efficiency of drip irrigation was proved in many research and applied in many regions, drip irrigation has not been applied widely yet The reasons for this problem come from the high initial cost, if people want to install drip irrigation for farms, they need a great amount of money to set up the storage water tank, pump station, controlling system, pipes system, and many other related pieces of equipment Furthermore, it is also required an engineer who has high skills and expertise in the drip irrigation sector The engineer will help you install and set up the system and give you good suggestions to use drip irrigation effectively They also are the people who periodically check and repair your system whenever it gets troubling Besides ensuring food security, drip irrigation plays a very crucial role in environmental management It is clear that drip irrigation could save a great amount of water compared to other irrigation methods It contributes to freshwater 38 conservation in many regions of the world, especially in arid areas and deserts Drip irrigation also solved the big problem of water scarcity for agriculture Promoting agriculture development and expansion Furthermore, the optimality of fertilizer in drip irrigation systems also helps to reduce soil pollution by chemical fertilizer The liquid fertilizer would be irrigated directly into the root’s zone of plants, so the plants could absorb fertilizer effectively The amount of fertilizer is applied exactly what the plants need in each growing stage Therefore, drip irrigation contributes to reducing pollution in soil and groundwater by chemical fertilizer 5.2 Conclusion To conclude, in this study, the researcher has assessed the effective of drip irrigation applying in tomato greenhouse farm in the Negev desert area The assessment was drawn by the present research: The drip irrigation run effectively and performed advantages compared to other irrigation methods The farmers could save about 6.03% of water in one hectare of tomato when applying drip irrigation instead of using sprinkler system By applied drip irrigation, they also produced more 10.3 % of tomato yield than when they used sprinkler system In term of Water Use Efficiency, the drip irrigation system shown higher indicator with about 10.08, while the sprinkler system obtained a lower number with 8.5 The limitation of the study is that the researcher has not provided some related research about soil and weather yet Although it is obvious that the main component 39 of soil in the research area is sand through observation and touching, this study has not shown properly the soil texture, for example, how many percent of sand, silt, and clay in soil They can more understanding about the influence of soil texture to the amount of water over each irrigation time, then compared to other areas in the upcoming research Additionally, if the researcher could provide the weather indicators record during the research, then they will have base to both compare and explain in other studies related to drip irrigation schedule and other irrigation methods As the future work, it is necessary to include more information in the database to increase the accuracy and persuasiveness of the study 5.3 Recommendation The results of this study indicated the advantages and better performance of drip irrigation system applying to grow tomato Especially, the possibility of saving water, irrigating at the right time and right places, increasing yield of agriculture production, and getting higher water use efficiency Therefore, there is a suggestion for not only farmers in Israel but the farming community around the world to apply drip irrigation method for suitable crops instead of using other ineffective irrigation methods On the other hand, on the basis of the study about assessing the effective of drip irrigation in increasing yield and saving water for tomato farm in Israel, they can more other research about drip irrigation applying in others crops in the world Otherwise, they also can the research about renovating drip irrigation system to optimize irrigation water for farming 40 41 REFERENCES A Tagar, A Chandio, A Mari, B Wagan (2012) Comparative study of drip and furrow irrigation methods at farmer’s field in Umarkot, World Academy of Science, Engineering and Technology, pp 863-867 Balram Panigrahi, D P Roy, S N Panda (January 2010) Water use and yield response of tomato as influenced by drip and furrow irrigation International Agricultural Engineering Journal, Vol 19 Bollaveni S Kumar, J Ravinder, K Gupta, S Rathod (18th August 2017) Drip irrigation – Advantages and Disadvantages of drip irrgation [Online] [Accessed on 15 October 2021] Available from: https://www.biotecharticles.com/AgricultureArticle/Drip-Irrigation-Advantages-and-Disadvantages-of-Drip-Irrigation-4086.html Central & Northern Arava -Tamar R&D (May 2013) About Arava [Online] [Accessed on 20 September 2021] Available from: http://en.agri.arava.co.il/about Climate to Travel (No date) Climate – Israel [Online] [Accessed on 22 June 2021] Available from: https://www.climatestotravel.com/climate/israel David Seidenberg (17th September 2019) A week of reckoning: Israel’s elections and the climate strike [Online] [Accessed on 21 June 2021] Available from: https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/a-week-of-reckoning-israels-elections-and-theclimate-strike/ 42 Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs (20 September 2021) Coaxing crops from the sand Available from: https://mfa.gov.il/MFA/InnovativeIsrael/Pages/Coaxing-crops20-Sep-2012.aspx Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs (2013) Israel, Size and Dimension [Online] [Accessed on 21 June 2021] Available from: https://mfa.gov.il/MFA/AboutIsrael/Maps/Pages/Israel-Size-and-Dimension.aspx Jeffrey P Mitchell1, Anil Shrestha, Karen Klonsky, Tom A Turini, and Kurt J Hembree (December 2014) Overhead and drip irrigation systems effects on tomato growth and yield in California’s Central Valley, pp 637-644 Kaniszewski, S and Dysko, J (1988) Effect of different irrigation systems on yield of tomatoes grown under plastic greenhouses Acta Hortic 228, 105-108 DOI: 10.17660/ActaHortic.1988.228.10 Available from: https://doi.org/10.17660/ActaHortic.1988.228.10 M Rakibuzzaman, Sk Rahul, M.R Jahan, F.B.R Urme and AFM Jamal Uddin (September 2018) Performance of drip irrigation system over conventional irrigation technique for tomato production on rooftop Int J Bus Soc Sci Res.7 (1): 40-43 Nation online (No date) Map of Israel, Middle East [Online] [Accessed on 21 June 2021] Available from: https://www.nationsonline.org/oneworld/map/israel_map2.htm National Geographic (No date) Fresh water crisis [Online] [Accessed on 17 June 2021] Available from: https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/article/freshwater-cr 43 National report Israel, CSD-16/17 (No date) Desertification [Online] [Accessed on 21 June 2021] Available from: https://www.un.org/esa/agenda21/natlinfo/countr/israel/desertification.pdf Nefesh (2021) The Central Arava [Online] [Accessed on 22 June 2021] Available from: https://www.nbn.org.il/gosouth/the-central-arava/ Netafim (2021) What is drip irrigation system? [Online] [Accessed on December 2021] Available from: https://www.netafim.com/en/drip-irrigation/ Nhabeagri (April 13, 2020) Tuoi nho giot co tu dau [Online] [Accessed on 21 June 2021] Available from: https://nhabeagri.com/nguon-goc-tuoi-nho-giot/ Sprinkler supply store (2021) Drip Irrigation vs Overhead Sprinklers [Online] [Accessed on December 2021] Available from: https://sprinklersupplystore.com/blogs/learning-center/drip-irrigation-vsoverhead-sprinklers Syngenta (2021) Cluster tomato [Online] [Accessed on 18 August 2021] Available from: https://www.zeraim.com/en/varieties/tomatoes/cluster-tomato V.P Tchakerian (2015) Arid land [Online] [Accessed on 19 June 2021] Available from: https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/earth-and-planetarysciences/arid-land World Wildlife Fund (WWF) (No date) Water scarcity [Online] [Accessed on 17 June 2021] Available from: https://www.worldwildlife.org/threats/water-scarcity Worldometer (19th June 2021) Current World Population [Online] [Accessed on 19 June 2021] Available from: https://www.worldometers.info/world-population/ 44 Yair Goldreich, Ora Karni (10 November 2001) Climate precipitation regime in Arava Valley, Israel Available from: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/249234092_Climate_and_Precipitation_R egime_in_the_Arava_Valley_Israel 45