Methods for forming an irrigation network for a mole subsurface irrigation system

Abstract

The article presents the results of field studies carried out in 2022 on light chestnut soils of the Lower Volga region, which were aimed at studying the methods of forming soil pipes for the mole irrigation system using various designs of the mole tine (a special working body for cutting molehills) and the speed of the tractor during the formation of the irrigation network. The considered method of irrigation in the soil and climatic conditions of this region has not been previously studied. As a result, it was found that the use of a trapezoidal stand with a “knife” (a front cutting edge 30 mm wide along the entire height of the stand) and a “chisel” (a rectangular cutting surface of the drainer) was the most effective for arranging an irrigation network of mole irrigators (molehills), since here, regardless of the shape and size of the expanders, the degree of their shedding was 5–38% lower than in the variants with a rectangular post with an ellipsoid shape of the cutting surface of the drainer. Also, our studies showed that when the tractor was moving at 0.9 ... 2.6 km / h, the degree of destruction of molehills was 42 ... 87%, and at 3.4 ... 4.3 km / h this figure decreased to 13 ... 18%, therefore, this speed allowed more efficient formation of soil pipes for the creation of mole subsoil irrigation systems. The study was supported by a grant from the Russian Science Foundation and the Administration of the Volgograd Region under project No. 22-26-20070, https://rscf.ru/project/22-26-20070.