Water Management in Horticultural Crops (1+1)

Fertigation through sub-surface irrigation

• The high labour requirement in spreading and collecting laterals every season, and the deterioration of exposed drip lines limit further expansion. Subsurface location of trickles may solve these problems.
  
• Further more, it would position the supply of nutrients in the centre of root system, where the water content is relatively high and steady with time.
  
• Nutrients introduced via sub-surface trickles can move in a spherical volume around the emitter, while transport in surface application is bounded within a hemisphere below the point source.
  
• The higher moisture content, greater root density, and larger soil volume favours P uptake to a significant level.
  
• It was observed that weed growth in sub-surface treatment was considerably lesser than surface placement