Water Wheel May/June 2020: Irrigated Agriculture

Abstract

Advances in drip irrigation promises even more water savings to farmers Farmers’ attempts to work ever more efficiently with their share of water has gone hand in hand with improved irrigation technologies. The irrigation sector is by far the largest water user in South Africa, and improvements here ripple beyond the agricultural community to all other water user groups in the country. Improvement of irrigation technology, in turn, results from better understanding of soil physics and crop water requirements. Accordingly, the future of drip irrigation has been described by some as low flow drip technology. This entails the delivery of a signigicantly low, consistent volume of water over a long period of time. Data on the implications are scarce, but it has now become the topic of a new research project on citrus. Though some of the elements behind the success is not yet fully understood, farmers have already achieved substantial water savings, coupled with increased yields and smoother farming operations, as a result.

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