Importance of drip irrigation

Due to the long-term adaptation of crops to the natural environment of their origin, there are certain requirements for temperature, light, water and other conditions in the cultivation process, which restricts the distribution of crops in different parts of the world. From the response of crop growth and development to photoperiod, it can be roughly divided into long-day crops and short-day crops. The former needs a long time of sunshine every day at a certain stage of the growth period. Generally, it needs more than no sunshine time to complete reproductive growth and form flower buds.

Crops also need enough water. Drip irrigation uses plastic pipes to send water through holes or drippers on capillaries about 10 mm in diameter to the roots of crops for local irrigation. It is currently the most effective water-saving irrigation method in arid and water-deficient areas, and the water utilization rate can reach 95%. Compared with sprinkler irrigation, drip irrigation has higher water-saving and yield-increasing effect. At the same time, it can combine fertilization and increase fertilizer efficiency more than twice.

The main characteristics of drip irrigation are small amount of irrigation and 2-12 liters of flow per hour of emitter. Therefore, a long duration of irrigation and short irrigation cycle can be used to do small-scale irrigation; low working pressure is needed to control the amount of irrigation more accurately, which can reduce ineffective inter-tree evaporation without causing water waste; drip irrigation can also be managed automatically.

Maintain soil structure. Under the effect of large amount of irrigation in traditional furrow irrigation, the facility soil is more eroded, compacted and eroded. If the soil is not ploughed and loosened in time, it will lead to serious consolidation, decline of ventilation and damage of soil structure to a certain extent. Drip irrigation is a kind of micro-irrigation. Water infiltrates into the soil slowly and evenly, which can maintain the soil structure and form an appropriate soil water, fertilizer and thermal environment.