Drip irrigation is the technology of watering plants with a thin stream of water directly near their root systems. In this technology, a pipe with small holes is used, into which high pressure water is supplied with very pure water, without the presence of sand and clay. In general, plastic pipes are used for drip irrigation. This technology is used mainly to save water when watering plants.
In Uzbekistan there are supporters of the use of drip irrigation in cotton growing. But how cost-effective is it?
Of course, at first it is important to determine, by what quantitative and qualitative criteria it is necessary to determine this effectiveness?
In Uzbekistan, surface irrigation is routinely applied to grooves between beds of cotton.
Since cotton plantations belong to the government in Uzbekistan, and the water of rivers belongs to the government, irrigation of these cotton plantations is also carried out by the representatives of this government. The entire harvest of cotton is also owned by the government of Uzbekistan. Therefore, it is now very difficult to determine the economic efficiency of cotton production in Uzbekistan. One can only approximately determine the number of necessary equipment to create a drip irrigation system in the existing system of cotton growing in the country.
Even with the use of just one drip irrigation pipe to irrigate the cotton shrubs at once on two beds, one hectare will need 7,000 meters of this pipe. Cotton in Uzbekistan – a culture of one year, so in the spring, these pipes need to be installed, and in autumn it is necessary to remove from these fields. And now you can imagine how much work will be required to install and clean these pipes on millions of hectares of land, where cotton is now grown in Uzbekistan? And these pipes need to be made or bought abroad, brought to the fields, and then taken away in the fall. It is also necessary to supply pure water to these pipes under high pressure.
The application of the drip irrigation system can be justified in gardens and vineyards, where these pipes can be used for many years.
With the continued use of the cotton irrigation technology currently in use, salinization of land will continue along the way, because the level of underground groundwater inevitably rises. For many previous years of such irrigation, millions of hectares of previously used agricultural land have become degraded saline lands that are unsuitable for crop production.
Thus, it is necessary to abandon the currently used destructive and wasteful cotton irrigation system, but the use of drip irrigation as an alternative is also economically very expensive.
But if in the current system of cotton growing in Uzbekistan to start using the principles of bio-intensive and biodynamic agriculture, it is possible step by step to transform cotton growing into more economically efficient and environmentally sustainable agrotechnology.
For example, in order to prevent the rise of underground groundwater with the currently applied surface irrigation of cotton, it is necessary to move from a monoculture method to a multicultural method of plant growing. Several rows of cotton should be alternated with several rows of another crop, for example – alfalfa.
And you need water only beds with cotton. Plants with alfalfa should not be watered, alfalfa has long roots, so it will use that part of the water that goes into the underground waters when watering cotton.
The alfalfa grass can be used to feed cattle, and the roots of alfalfa are very useful for improving soil fertility.
Ahtam Shaymardanov
California
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