Crop yield and energy assessment of chickpea and sunflower cultivation depending on microirrigation system designs

Abstract

Over the past 15-20 years, agricultural production in Ukraine has been reoriented to the cultivation of more profitable, highly liquid, as well as drought-resistant crops, in particular – chickpeas and sunflowers. Simultaneously, the technology of growing these crops is quite energy-consuming, especially under irrigation conditions. Therefore, research on the impact of micro-irrigation system designs on the energy parameters of chickpea and sunflower cultivation is relevant. The purpose of the scientific work is to perform an energy assessment of chickpea and sunflower cultivation depending on the construction of micro-irrigation systems and the method of water supply. Research methods: short-term field experiments, and analytical and statistical methods for processing experimental data. The scheme of field experiments provided for various options for laying irrigation pipelines (IP) of micro-irrigation systems (in the horizontal and vertical planes) and the implementation of a pulsed water supply mode (standard). The control was the variant without irrigation. Based on the results of experimental studies, it was found that the method of laying irrigation pipelines (the design of micro-irrigation systems) reliably affects the yield of field crops. Thus, a higher yield was recorded with a shorter distances between the IP (0,7 and 1,0 m), regardless of the depth of the pipelines. It has been proven, that the higher yield level of both chickpeas (4,28 t/ha) and sunflower (4,50 t/ha) was obtained when implementing the pulse water supply mode, however, such an increase was within the error of the field experiment. At the same time, the introduction of subsoil drip irrigation is more appropriate than the cultivation of chickpeas and sunflowers in terms of the total energy costs of the technology. An analysis of energy efficiency in terms of the energy efficiency coefficient (EEC) indicates a high level of energy efficiency in chickpea and sunflower cultivation under both surface and subsurface drip irrigation (EEC = 2,03-2,23 and 2,32-2,50, respectively). The most effective was the cultivation of these crops with a pulsed water supply: EEC was 2,44 for growing of chickpeas and 2,61 for growing of sunflowers. The research materials are of practical value for farmers in the matter of energy management in chickpea and sunflower micro-irrigation technologies.