Drip irrigation allows farmers save 50% in water costs

Wyc­liffe Ob­woge, an ag­ro­nom­ist says the saved water can be used in an­other round or on sim­ilar ir­rig­a­tion field.

At the same time the method al­lows for ap­plic­a­tion of li­quid fer­til­izers and other farm chem­ic­als like pesti­cides in a more pre­cise and eco­nomic way, he says.

This re­duces wastage of pesti­cides, water, fer­til­izer and other re­sources in a green­house or open field.

Re­duced dis­ease

Over­head ir­rig­a­tion meth­ods en­cour­age ac­cu­mu­la­tion of mois­ture in the en­vir­on­ment. Mois­ture cre­ates good mi­cro­cli­mate for dis­ease caus­ing germs like fungi to thrive.

But drip ir­rig­a­tion will limit water sup­ply to the stem base and it will go dir­ect to the soil.

At the same time, drip ir­rig­a­tion gives farm­ers more lat­it­ude to con­trol water sup­ply. If there are no plants at given out­lets, the farmer can tem­por­ar­ily close those holes with a cel­lo­tape, al­low­ing for the water to flow to other areas in­stead of going to waste.

Uni­form yield

Con­sist­ent amount and rate of lo of water and any other re­sources in­cluded leads to equal sup­ply of nu­tri­ents.

For this reason, the crop growth rated and final yield is uni­form, the Amiran Kenya Ag­ro­nom­ist says.

Ini­tial set­ting up of the pips in what may take more la­bour but later ap­plic­a­tion will be easy, be­cause a farmer will only re­quire turn­ing on the water tank tap on. No move­ment of sprink­lers or wa­ter­ing cans through the farm.

Min­imal weeds

Loc­al­ised re­lease of water also re­duces growth of weeds. Crops will also grow faster than weeds be­cause they have suf­fi­cient water and nu­tri­ents for growth un­like weeds.

Amiran Kenya sup­plies green­houses to­gether with the drip ir­rig­a­tion. They also dis­trib­ute the drip ir­rig­a­tion equip­ment for open field.

For any ques­tions, Mu­tune can be reached on +254715787635.