DESIGN, DEVELOPMENT AND TESTING OF MOBILE SPRINKLER RAINGUN FOR SMART IRRIGATION IN ARID ZONE-BASED CROPS

摘要

Pakistan is now facing severe water crisis as in a recent newsletter of IMF, Pakistan has beendeclared 3rd most water scared country of the world. A big share of water is lost in agriculture duringconventional means of irrigation through field application and percolation losses. A new mobilesprinkler raingun was developed at Agricultural Mechanization Research Institute, Multan duringthe year 2018 for precise and decentralized application of water. A centrifugal pump of 24 m3/hcapacity coupled with 16 hp diesel engine to apply water through rain gun with selected range of18, 20, 22 & 24 mm nozzles was analysed in terms of area coverage, application efficiency andcoefficient of uniformity at different pressures. Raingun of size 24 mm was installed to throw 38m jet of uniformly scattered water with discharge rate of 12.28 L/s at 3 bar pressure. The irrigatedarea was 0.46 ha with application rate of 9.8 mm/hr, while the coefficient of uniformity of thissprinkler raingun was found to be 80.2%. This system was equipped with hose reel that holds35 m length of canvas pipe having dia. 63.5 mm. The worked out operational cost and paybackperiod was US $6.81/hr and 3.8 years respectively. This research study showed that this systemsaved 72% water is saved with 4 times higher yield output in chickpea crop and 67% amountwas less consumed in operational cost.