Irrigation Engineering

Drip irrigation is adaptable to (i) all vegetables and a vast assortment of crops, except paddy which requires standing water, (ii) all climatic variations, and (iii) highly permeable soils, like sandy soils, sandy loam, gravelly soils and less permeable soils like clay, clay loam, silty clay or shallow soils underlain with impermeable strata. However, it is most suited to coarse sandy formation. Under the adverse condition of high salinity of both soil and water, high temperatures and low relative humidity, crops of record yields and superb quality are obtained.
A unique feature of drip irrigation is its excellent adaptability to saline water. Since the frequency of irrigation is quite high, the plant base always remains wet which keeps the salt concentration in the plant root zone below the critical.