1. PRESENTED BY
Ramnath Potai
Ph. D. Scholar
Department of Agronomy
CHARACTERISTIC OF IRRIGATION AND
FARMING SYSTEM AFFECTING IRRIGATION
MANAGEMENT
INDIRA GANDHI KRISHI VISHWAVIDYALAYA RAIPUR
College of Agriculture, Raipur
Session- 2022-23

2. Contents
 What is Irrigation
 Factors to consider when selecting and planning an irrigation
system
 Irrigation methods and Characteristics
 Farming System affecting Irrigation management
 Basic components of farming systems affecting irrigation
Soil
Topography
Water resources
Selection of crop
Selection of livestock's
Labor availability
Economic condition

3. What is Irrigation ?
 Irrigation is artificial application of water in crop field to fulfill
the water requirement of crop; supplementing effective rainfall,
soil profile and groundwater contribution to meet the crop
water requirements for optimum growth.
 Irrigation is the application of controlled amounts of water to
plants at needed intervals.
 Irrigation helps to grow agricultural crops, maintain
landscapes, and revegetate disturbed soil in dry areas and
during periods of less than average rainfall

4. Factors to consider when selecting and planning an irrigation
system are:
 Slope and topography of the field;
 Crops to be grown - water requirements, tolerance to salt, moisture stress,
wetness of surface, water logging, value of the crop, crop height, and
cultivation required;
 Field size and shape;
 Soil texture, structure, depth, infiltration characteristics, water-holding
capacity, erosivity, and variability within a field;
 Soil and water salinity;
 Availability and quantity of water, and availability of time;
 Amount and intensity of rainfall;
 Economics - initial costs, amortized costs, operating costs (fuel, labor, water
maintenance), availability of capital, marketability of crop, and net
profitability; and
 Farmer, social, and institutional constraints.

5. Irrigation methods and Characteristics
1. Surface - water is spread over the land surface;
2. Manual irrigation
3.Drip, Sprinkle or Low Volume Irrigation - water is applied as
artificial rainfall;
4. Automatic Irrigation
5.Sub-irrigation - water is supplied to the root zone of the crop by
maintaining a high water table.

6. I. Surface irrigation
 Widely used and well-known.
 Can be operated without high-tech applications but it is labour
intensive.
 Proper design of irrigation area (e.g. size, slope, levelness) and
knowledge about soil type (e.g. texture, intake rate). (HILL
2008)
 Capital costs (levelling fields, construction of reservoirs) might
be expensive. Operational costs are low.
 Irrigation efficiency – 60-65%

7. Basically three systems:
Basin Irrigation
Border Irrigation
Furrow Irrigation
Basin Irrigation System
 Field must be levelled and encompassed by a dyke.
 It is favoured by moderate to slow intake soils and deep-rooted, closely
spaced crops.
 Effective method of leaching salts from the soil profile into the deeper
groundwater.
 Can be automated with inexpensive flow controls at the basin inlet.
 Dikes must be well maintained to eliminate breaching and waste.
 It is difficult and often infeasible to incorporate the use of modern farm
machinery in small basins (hand or animal cultivation).

8. Border Irrigation System
 Expansion of basin irrigation for crops, which do not tolerate
flooding.
 Long, rectangular or contoured field shapes and longitudinal
but no lateral slope.
 Field is divided into strips (width of 6 to 30 metres) separated
by border ridges.
 Stripes between ridges are flooded during irrigation.
 Used for tree crops or crops as alfalfa or small grains.

9. Furrow Irrigation System
 Constructing small channels (furrows) along the primary
direction of water movement.
 Can be used in conjunction with basins and borders to
overcome topographical variation and crusting.
 More labour intensive than border or basin systems.
 Smaller wetted area can reduce evaporation loss.
 Salinity hazards, limited machinery mobility and increased
erosion potential.
 Well adapted to row crops and orchards or vineyards.

10. Manual irrigation
Basic Irrigation Principles
 High labour input and high self-help compatibility
 Require no technical equipment, therefore they are cheap
 water cans
 Low-Cost Drip Irrigation System
 Pitcher Irrigation
 Bottle Irrigation
 Porous and Sectioned Pipes
 Perforated Plastic Sleeves

11. Water Cans
 Very basic and creates a lot of work on large fields, but widely
used.
 Water can be added on very specific points.
 Carry poles across the shoulders and a water can at each side
facilitates the irrigation work.
 A rose added to the water can creates a sprinkler effect (see
picture).
Low-Cost Drip Irrigation System
 Low-cost plastic pipes laid on the ground and irrigate crops.
 Small holes in the pipes allow a water to drip out.
 A water tank on a higher level distributes water by gravity.
 No waste of water (e.g. evaporation, wind), specific irrigation
at the root zone.

12. Pitcher Irrigation
 Placing porous clay jars (or pots) in shallow pits and soil is packed around.
 Water can seep slowly out through the porous walls and reach the roots of
the plants.
 Jars can made locally or sweet monkey orange fruit after drying can be
used.
 Jars should be filled regularly and have to be replaced if there are big cracks
Bottled Irrigation
 Similar to pitcher irrigation.
 The bottle is first filled and than place up side down next to plant.
 Water is released slowly directly beside the roots.
 No evaporation or water loss due to wind

13. DRIP IRRIGATION
 Water is conveyed under pressure through a pipe system to the
fields.
 It drips slowly onto the soil through emitters or drippers which are
located close to the plants.
 Only the root zone is wetted.
 There are very technical systems but also self-made designs.
 It requires relatively small amounts of water, but it is very
effective.
 Pre-treated waste water or urine can be added as a fertiliser.
 Used in highly technical and industrial farming.
 Filters are installed to prevent clogging.
 Fertiliser and chemicals often are mixed into the irrigation water
 The system can be flushed to clean it.
 Irrigation efficiency- 90-95%

14. Sprinkler Irrigation
 Widely used and well-known.
 Water is distributed through a system of pipes (usually by
pumping) and spray heads at the outlets distribute the water
over the entire soil surface.
 This system, especially large ones, are mostly automated.
 It can be found in small vegetable gardens up to large crop
fields. Therefore several systems were developed:
 Sprinkler heads
 Linear Move
 Travelling Big Gun
 Side Roll
 Irrigation efficiency - 80%

15. Types of sprinkler system
On the basis of arrangement for spraying irrigation water
1. Rotating head (or) revolving sprinkler system
2. Perforated pipe system

16. AUTOMATIC IRRIGATION
 Once it is installed, the irrigation system has not to be
controlled all the time.
 Modern big scale systems operated by one (skilled) labour.
 Very technical components required. There even high-tech
solutions using GIS and satellites to measure water needs.
 Time Based System
 Volume Based System
 Open Loop Systems
 Closed Loop Systems
 Real Time Feedback System
 Computer Based Irrigation Control Systems
 There also simple methods such as clay pot irrigation networks.

17. Sub surface drip irrigation
 Is conveyed under pressure through a pipe system and applied
to the roots below soil surface.
 No surface crusting or evaporation loss, thus highly efficient
irrigation method.
 Fields can still be worked when irrigation systems are installed
and application of fertiliser can optimise plant growth

18. Farming System affecting Irrigation management
Farming system represents an appropriate combination of farm
enterprises (cropping system, horticulture, livestock, fishery,
forestry, poultry) and means available to farmer to raise them
for profitability. it interacts adequately with environment
without dislocating the ecological and socioeconomic balance
on one hand and attempts to meet the national goals on the
other.

19. Basic components of farming systems affecting irrigation such as
 Soil
 Topography
 Water resources
 Selection of crop
 selection of livestock's
 Labor availability
 Economic condition

20. Soil
 Texture
Fine textured soil have more water holding
capacity than course textured soil, hence irrigation
methods will vary according to soil texture.

21. 2. Structure
Different soil structure have different infiltration rate i.e. platy
soil structure have lower water infiltration rate than crumb or
spherical soil structure.

22. Topography
 Topography is the slope of the ground and how much
uneven or leveled it is and which method of irrigation
should apply on field totally depends upon the topography
of particular given area.
 If the slope is from 0.4 to 8 percent, corrugation surface
method is suitable. If the slope is more than the above
limit, sprinkler method has been considered more suitable
for soils which are shallow and permeability is fast.
 Drip or sprinkler system is more appropriate irrigation
method than basin or furrow method of irrigation in
undulating land.

23. Water resources
The sources of irrigation and the chemical composition of the
water also affect the irrigation method. At the time of irrigation
by tube wells, the sprinkler method or drip irrigation method is
suitable, but in canal irrigation, flood method is selected.
Water conservation is the demand of the day when the whole
world is facing water crisis. Hence, such a method of irrigation
should be adopted which uses minimum water but provides
maximum humidity to the plants. Sprinkler method and drip
irrigation method are the best from the view point of water
conservation.

24. Selection of crop
 The irrigation method is selected according to type of crops
and pattern of its sowing.
 Different crops require different quantities of water. Growth of
plants and their height are also affected.
 In taller plants, check basin irrigation method is more suitable
as compared to sprinkler method.

25. Cropping system affecting irrigation management
1. Mixed cropping- Finger millet + Cowpea
2. Intercropping- Wheat : Mustard
3. Relay cropping- Rice- Lathyrus, Maize- potato
4. Multistoried cropping- Coconut + Guava + termeric
5. Cropping sequence- Rice- vegetable- greengram
6. Crop cultivation method-
1.) DSR, lehi rice, transplanted rice
2) Berseem- dry sowing, wet sowing
7. Crop management practices- Fertilizers application, weed
management etc.

26. Selection of live-stocks
 Flood irrigation methods can give the benefit of taking other
farm enterprises such as duckery or fisheries in the same field.
So, if integrated farming is practiced, surface method of
irrigation can be adopted as it will give benefit to both
enterprise.
 Also the waste of one enterprise can be effectively utilized by
other, thus makes an efficient utilization of irrigation system
available.

27. Labour availability
 Availability of labour is an essential factor in selecting an
irrigation system.
 As compared to sprinkler or drip irrigation method, check basin
method of irrigation requires more labour.
 So, depending upon the availability of labour, a particular
irrigation method is adopted along with other factors.
 So, if there is shortage of labour, mechanised or hi-tech
irrigation methods can be selected, provided money is not an
issue.

28. Economic condition
 While selecting any method of irrigation, the economic condition must be
kept in mind as many irrigation methods require heavy initial investment
but lesser investment later on.
 A Farmer’s economic condition is the prime factor which affects on
adopting a particular irrigation management system.
 Generally poor or small scale farmer’s fail to adopt machine driven
irrigation systems due to high cost and thus they depend more on cheaper
methods as manual or surface methods in their small farms. Wells, ponds
and rivers are the major irrigation resources.
 However, a large scale farmer adopting large scale enterprise of farming
system selects sprinkler or drip irrigation system as they have sufficient cost
of production and monetary resources are available to him and thus gains a
long term profit through good quality and higher productivity.
 Surface irrigation methods require continuous investment

29. Reference
1. Sarkar, D. and haldar, A.1997. Applied pedology, pg-151-152.
2. Gupta U.S (Ed.) Production and Improvement of crop
drylands.
3. Mishra, R. R.&Ahmad,M.1987. Manual on Irrigation and
Agronomy, Oxford IBH.
4. Singh, S.S. 2006. Principle and practices of Agronomy.
Kalyani publication.