Design, Construction And Testing of Drip Irrigation System Using Medical Drip as Emitter

ABSTRACT   

Due to the scarcity of water in Nigeria, there is a need for an irrigation system that conserves water for efficient crop production. In the course of this research work, a drip irrigation system was constructed and tested with the sole aim of using cheaply available materials to determine the variation in emitter discharge at different heads and also, the coefficient of uniformity of the system. A test was carried out by determining the volume of water discharged by each of the emitter along the lateral and afterward, comparing the discharge by each of the emitter to one another thus, determining the variation in the emitter discharges with respect to heads. The result of this test showed that when the reservoir was filled with water, the head in the reservoir was 0.42 m and the total head was (1.4 + 0.42 = 1.82 m). At this head, the emitter discharge for the first emitter on the first lateral was 6.50 mm/s. when the reservoir was half filled; the total head in the reservoir was (1.4 + 0.21 =1.61 m). At this head, the emitter discharge for the same emitter was 6.19 mm/s and when the water level in the reservoir was near empty, the total head was (1.4 + 0.07 = 1.47 m). At this head, the emitter discharge was 5.75 mm/s. This shows that increase in heads lead to increase in discharge. From the above result, it is easy to see that increase in head has little increase in discharge except for clogged emitter which may cause deviation in the normal discharge of the emitter.