METHOD FOR DETERMINING TOMATO DROP IRRIGATION RATES Russian patent published in 2003 - IPC

FIELD: agriculture, in particular, agricultural amelioration. SUBSTANCE: method involves determining volume weight of soil by means of instruments; determining plow layer volume, wetting depth, soil layer moisture content at minimal moisture capacity of soil, preirrigation moisture content and correcting irrigation rate with precipitation value being taken into account; locating gaged dripper with predetermined characteristics set by means of instruments on soil area to be irrigated and planted with tomato seedlings; determining soil type and characteristics thereof; setting actual water supply volume by means of dripper and recalculating water demand from formula: V = a•в•h•α•k_H•(W_mwc-λW_mwc), where V is water supply volume, cu.m; a is space between drippers, m; в is wetting strip width, m; h is depth of layer to be wetted through, m; kh is coefficient taking into account void content and water permeability of soil on area to be irrigated; α is soil volume weight, t/cu.m; λ is coefficient of preirrigation soil moisture content corresponding to lower wetting border, parts of unit; w_mwc is average moisture content of active soil layer corresponding to minimal water capacity of dry soil weight, %; calculating irrigation time of reference dripper and improving on the basic of resultant irrigation time the actual irrigation rate per 1 hectare of area to be irrigated. EFFECT: provision for substantial reduction in absolute irrigation rate values and obtaining expected tomato yield.