Potential Water Conservation Using Site-Specific Variable Rate Irrigation

Site-specific variable-rate irrigation (VRI) systems can be used to spatially manage irrigation within sub-field-sized zones and optimize spatial water use efficiency. The goal of the research is to provide farmers and consultants a tool to evaluate the potential benefits of implementing VRI. The specific objective of this research is to evaluate the potential water savings using VRI management compared with uniform irrigation management to maintain soil water holding capacity above 50% depletion using two irrigation scenarios: 1) a standard 12.5 mm irrigation per application; and 2) an application to refill the soil profile to field capacity. A 21-year simulation study was carried out on a selected field with varying degrees of soil and topographic variability. The simulated field had 12 soil mapping units with water holding capacities in the top 0.30-m ranging from 42 to 70 mm. The 21-year simulation covering all weather conditions for each soil produced only two significantly different irrigation management zones for scenario 1, and for scenario 2 only one management zone. However, when the 21-year period was divided into periods with different ratios of rainfall to reference evapotranspiration, the simulations identified 1 to 5 management zones with significantly different irrigation requirements. These results indicate that variable rate irrigation system design and management should not be solely based on long term average weather conditions. Years with differing weather conditions should be used for potentially identifying management zones for VRI systems. Irrigation application depths between management zones ranged from 17 to 38 mm. However, when the actual soil areas of the study field were utilized to calculate the total volume of irrigation water applied, it resulted in an increase in water usage in the 2 and 4 management zones ranging from -1.2% to 5.8%. Water usage with VRI over uniform irrigation was greater by -1.6% to 6.8% in the 12.5 mm irrigations and by -1.2% to 2.2% for the field capacity irrigations Keywords: Management zones, Precision farming, Variable-rate irrigation, Water conservation.