Drip discharge selection based on soil moisture distribution analysis

Moisture distribution in soil is one of the most important principals in drip irrigation designs. The moisture distribution analysis was applied to select drip discharge. This is usually performed based on engineering skills. The objectives of this study were to model and analyze moisture distribution and to introduce a discharge selection procedure. Consequently, an experiment was carried out in which the drip system was selected to be point source including discharges of 2 to 8 lhr-1. The wetted patterns from drips were measured and analyzed for onion, potato and tomato. The obtained results showed that the most suitable discharges to irrigate onion, potato and tomato were 2 lhr-1 (with one day interval, 6 hr application time), 2 (with one day interval, 7 hr application time) and 8 lhr-1(with 3 day interval, 2 hr application time), respectively.