the influence of fertigation on clogging of some emitters in drip irrigation

introduction: an appropriate water resources management and planning is necessary due to the scarcity of water resources and rapidly growing world population. in this regard, selecting appropriate methods for irrigation is one of the most important issues. drip irrigation is a recent advanced irrigation method in which fertilizers can be efficiently applied along with irrigation water. drip fertigation, however, can potentially cause clogging of emitters. various factors such as clogging increase manufactures’ coefficient of variation and water temperature and pressure changes could alter emitter discharge and water distribution uniformity. the aim of this study is to evaluate the effect of fertigation on clogging of emitters and the performance of drip irrigation systems. materials and methods: this study was performed as a laboratory experiment at the university of zabol. the experiment was done in the form of factorial in a completely randomized design with three replications in the hydraulics laboratory, the university of zabol. the first factor was fertilizer type including: f0 (control), f1 (ammonium nitrate) and f2 (urea) and the second factor was the emitter types including one-nozzle on line (a), six-nozzles in line (b) and eight-nozzles on line (c). the tap water was used for irrigation. the system included 9 laterals, 3 m each with 18 emitters on each lateral. fertilizer solution with known concentrations of 0.08 grams per liter was entered into the system from a plastic tank. fertilizer tank was covered to avoid water evaporation even in a small amount. the experiment lasted for 60 days with 12 operating hours per day. the emitter discharge was measured every three days at the end of day. in order to evaluate the degree of emitter clogging, the percentages of discharge reduction (qt), christiansen’s coefficient of uniformity (cu), distribution uniformity (du) and discharge coefficient of variations (vm) were calculated as follows: (1) (2) (3) (4) where qa, qm and qt are the average, primary and secondary emitter discharges (l/hrs), respectively, qi is the individual emitter discharge (l/hrs), sm is the standard deviation of discharge (l/hrs) and n is the number of measurements. results and discussion: the results indicated that both fertilizer and emitter type have significant effect on reduction of emitter discharge and distribution uniformity as well as on increase of emitter coefficient of variation. the duncan test for comparing means showed that the a type emitters had the highest clogging while the b type emitters had the lowest clogging. the percentages of discharge reduction for emitters a, b and c were about 18, 24 and 22, respectively, for treatment f0 (control); 24, 39 and 30 for treatment f1; and 34, 44 and 32 for treatment f2. the results indicated that the emitter clogging increases with altering fertilizer from f0 to f2. f2 (urea fertilizer) had the worse effect on emitter clogging than f1 (ammonium nitrate fertilizer) which could be due to more nitrate produced by urea fertilizer. also, the results showed that the emitter clogging and discharge coefficient of variation are increased by increasing the elapsed time. urea and ammonium nitrate fertilizers are hydrolyzed in water and partly converted to nitrate, which is consumed by algae and other microorganisms causing slime accumulation. bacterial slimes can be a direct cause of clogging for emitters. conclusion: according to the results, both fertilizer and emitter types may significantly change the hydraulic properties of emitters. the smallest clogging belonged to emitter of type a when fertilizer f0 was applied as it results in discharge reduction of 18.44%. the largest clogging belonged to emitter of type b when fertilizer f2 was applied (discharge reduction was about 44%). in general, it could be said that fertigation may influence emitter discharge depending on fertilizer treatments (e.g. fertilizer type and concentration), water properties and emitter type. the clogging problems must be attended more specifically as it may reduce farmers’ willingness for drip irrigation implementation and makes them do surface irrigation which may result in more water losses. this study showed that the quality of water used in drip fertigation increases the clogging made by fertilizer application. so, the quality of irrigation water should be investigated every few days. the use of nitrogen fertilizer may cause biological clogging of emitters, so when such fertilizer are used, the type of emitter should be considered.