Assessing the efficiency of drip irrigation technology to increase agricultural production yield and save water in arava valley, israel

THAI NGUYEN UNIVERSITY UNIVERSITY OF AGRICULTURE AND FORESTRY NGUYEN PHONG LAM BACHELOR THESIS ASSESSING THE EFFICIENCY OF DRIP IRRIGATION TECHNOLOGY TO INCREASE TOMATO YIELD AND SAVE

THAI NGUYEN UNIVERSITY

UNIVERSITY OF AGRICULTURE AND FORESTRY

NGUYEN PHONG LAM

BACHELOR THESIS

INCREASE TOMATO YIELD AND SAVE WATER

IN ARAVA VALLEY, ISRAEL

Study Mode: Full time

Major: Environmental Science and Management

Faculty: International Programs Office

Batch: K48

Thai Nguyen, 2021

DOCUMENTATION PAGE WITH ABSTRACT

Thai Nguyen University of Agriculture and Forestry

Assessing the efficiency of drip irrigation technology

to increase agricultural production yield and save water

in Arava Valley, Israel

by applying a drip irrigation system in growing tomatoes It also assessed the efficiency

of the drip irrigation model by compared to other irrigation methods, namely sprinkler irrigation system The experiment was conducted in a tomato field of Natureza Farm, Arava Valley, Israel There were 300 m2 of greenhouse separated into two equal parts

to set up the experiment One part was installed drip irrigation system, and another was set up a sprinkler irrigation system The tomato variety and environmental conditions were the same for both irrigation methods The research used observation, method of

data collection, measurement method, and document research

The results indicated that those tomatoes applied drip irrigation system would use less 12.71 m3 over 150 m2 experiment area than when used sprinkler irrigation system Additionally, tomatoes applied drip irrigation produced more yield with about 2477 kg compared to 2222 kg produced by using sprinkler system The experiment also pointed out that the water use efficiency index of the sprinkler system was lower than drip irrigation about 8.5 and 10.08 in the order given Drip irrigation performed better than sprinkler irrigation in terms of yield and water saving

Keywords: Drip irrigation, Sprinkler system, Water Use Efficiency,

Tomato, Natureza, Israel

The number of

pages:

Date of

Submission:

5th November 2021

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

During the time studying in the university, doing the internship is very meaningful for every student The internship helps students are able to apply the knowledge and theories to practical situations and accumulate experiences for the jobs in the future Throughout the period of the internship in Israel, I received much conscientious support and help which guide me to open my mind and finish

my project

First, I would like to express my gratitude to the Thai Nguyen University of Agriculture and Forestry, the International Training Center, the Advance Education Program who created a wonderful opportunity for me to first time go abroad and take an internship in Israel - a nation with modern agriculture technology in the world Second, I sincerely thank my supervisor, Dr Bui Quang Binh, who guide and instruct me to overcome the difficulties and provide answers

to my questions during the research With the enthusiastic support of my supervisor, I could complete my research successfully Third, I would like to express my appreciation to Mr David Ohana, Mr Ohad Finer- the big bosses of Natureza company who gave me a chance to do the project on their farm Besides,

I would like to thank Mr Asap- a manager of Natureza company, who provided

me with lots of useful information for my project Lastly, I would like to express

my gratitude to the AICAT center and my supervisor in AICAT, Mrs Hadas, who gave me advice and taught me many things about agriculture in Israel

Since the limitation of my knowledge, experience, and time, the research cannot avoid the omission I really hope to receive the comment and contribution

to complete my research

TABLE OF CONTENTS

LIST OF FIGURES 1

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS 2

PART I INTRODUCTION 3

1.1 Research rationale 3

1.2 Research’s objectives 9

1.2.1 Objectives 9

1.2.2 Professional expertise 10

1.3 Research questions and hypotheses 10

1.4 Limitations 11

PART II LITERATURE REVIEW 13

PART III MATERIALS AND METHODS 17

3.1 Experiment location 17

3.2 Preparing before cultivation 18

3.3 Installation of Drip Irrigation 19

3.4 Installation of Sprinkler Irrigation 21

3.5 Ikram tomato variety 22

3.6 Water Saving 24

3.7 Yield of tomatoes 25

3.8 Water Use Efficiency 26

PART IV RESULTS 28

4.1 Water applied for irrigation 28

4.2 Yield of crop 31

4.3 Water use efficiency 34

PART V DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION 36

5.1 Discussion 36

5.2 Conclusion 38

5.3 Suggestions 40

REFERENCES 42

LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 1 Administrative map of Israel 5

Figure 2 Moshav Idan 9

Figure 3 The experiment location, Farm A Dudu, Moshav Idan, Israel 18

Figure 4 The pump station of Natureza farm 20

Figure 5 A cluster of Ikram tomato variety 23

Figure 6 Tomatoes was weighed by electric scale 26

Figure 7 The water irrigated by drip and sprinkler irrigation methods 29

Figure 8 The total water irrigated for experiment 30

Figure 9 The total water used of drip over sprinkler irrigation in one hectare 31

Figure 10 The crop yield of tomato by drip and sprinkler irrigation methods 32

Figure 11 The yield of tomatoes for drip and sprinkler irrigation system in experiment 33

Figure 12 Total yield of tomato of drip over sprinkler irrigation system in one hectare 34

Figure 13 The Water Use Efficiency (WUE) in drip over sprinkler irrigation 35

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

WUE - Water Use Efficiency

WWF - World Wildlife Fund

JNF - Jewish National Fund

PART I INTRODUCTION

1.1 Research rationale

Water is an essential factor for life of millions creature and the human on the Earth Seventy percent of our planet is covered by water, it is easy to think that the water is plentiful, and the water shortage problem will never happen in our beautiful planet (WWF, n.d) Nonetheless, the truth is most of water is salt water, the water which we drink, cook, or irrigate for the farm is fresh water It accounts for only about 2.5% of water is fresh and just 1% of it can be used and easy to accessible, the rest of water is trapped in frozen glaciers or snowfield and unavailable for use (National Geographic, n.d)

Nowadays, under the pressure of population explosion with about 7.87 billion people, the demand of water for life, agriculture activities, industrial are considerable (Worldometer, 2021) According to WWF, there is approximately 1.1 billion people access to the water hardly around the world, while 2.7 billion people must use famine water for at least one month yearly and many other people are using polluted water (WWF, n.d) Furthermore, with the over exploitation of fresh water, human also gives the negative impacts to the environment and pollutes the water in the nature Besides the polluted water unavailable to use, it has a great number of rivers, lakes and aquifers are drying up Half of wetland areas and water ecosystems in the Earth are shrinking and disappearing (WWF, n.d) The weather in many areas is altered under the impact

of climate change, as the result is drought phenomena concurrent happen causing

water scarcity problem It is predicted that this problem will become more terrible and two-thirds of people in our planet may suffer extreme water shortage and the more ecosystems can disappear by 2025 (WWF, n.d)

Especially for arid areas where has typical characteristics of very high temperature, lower rainfall and evapotranspiration, and dry climate, finding water is

a tough issue The arid areas account for 35% of land areas on the Earth, more than 20% of the world population, and many other terrestrial biomes live there (Tchakerian, 2015) Those areas are also increasingly extended and take large portion

of the Earth surface along with the decrease of the amount of freshwater Particularly, there are many countries and regions belong to arid areas or very drought like Israel,

it is hard to live and survive in those areas, not to mention develop agriculture Seeking solutions to save water and increase the agriculture production yield are crucial to ensure enough water for use and food security The drip irrigation is a most important invention of last century which have a strong influence on the development of agriculture in arid areas in particular and in the world in general The research will focus on assessing the efficiency of drip irrigation method to save water and increase yield of agriculture product

Israel is a typical nation facing to extreme water shortage problem Established in

1948, the country of Jewish people got many difficult to survive and adapt to the harsh climate of arid areas The State of Israel is a country which located in the Middle East

of Asia The total area of Israel is 22,145 sq.km and bordered to Lebanon in the north, Syria in northeast, Jordan in the east and Egypt in southwest (Israel Ministry of

Foreign Affairs, 2013) It also has a long coastline of Mediterranean Sea in West and

a short coastline of Red Sea to the south (Figure 1) Although Israel has large area is contiguous to the seas, the climate of Jewish Nation is harsh, especially in southern

Israel

Figure 1 Administrative map of Israel (Nation online, n.d)

The Israel’s climate is characterized by two main seasons which are dry, hot in summer (annually from April to September) and cool, rainy in the winter (often from October to March) Although the country is quite small, there is different in weather

of regions from north to south The climatic in the north of Israel is mild and more comfortable because of the location, elevation, and the influence of the Mediterranean Sea Annual temperature ranges from 14o C in January and about 26o C in August, however, the temperature can rise to 40o C in April and May when the heat wave come (Climate to travel, n.d) Due to the precipitation occurs about 60 days per year, the annual rainfall in northern Israel is about 580 millimeters, and it often has rain in months from December to February (Climate to travel, n.d)

By contrast, the climate in the south is very extreme, characterized by the climate

of desert Dry, low humidity, high temperature and less rain are those typical weather features in Arava Valley In the winter from November to February, the weather is cold with temperature ranging between 10o C to 28o C (Climate to travel, n.d) It is cloudy and rain normally occurs at this time, however, compared to a great amount of evaporation rates (3500 mm/year), the rainfall is very small around 25mm to 50mm per year (Goldreich, 2001) Particularly, the summer in Arava Valley is severe with heat stress, dryness and hot, it sometimes exceeds 45o C, the hottest time in July and August (Climate to travel, n.d) The Arava Valley also is the place where reached the highest solar radiation in the world, it is estimated that the mean value of global radiation is about 22.5 Megajoules per square meter (MJ/m2) (Bitan, 1991)

Arava is a small valley belongs to the Negev Desert, Israel With the typical extreme climate of desert including very high temperature and evaporation, strong isolation and low precipation, this region seems impossible to do agriculture By contrast, this arid land is covered by green color with fertile fields and play an important role in the development of agriculture

In the 1950’s, there was a group of immigrant Jewish came to Arava to build a community and turned this land to livable They opened farms and made their living

by growing vegetable and flowers for export under the harsh weather The typical plant of Arava is date, otherwise, they also grow many types of vegetable and fruits such as watermelon, pepper, melon, zucchini, eggplant, cucumber, onion, garlic, tomato, and variety fruits like mango, grape, avocado and lichee

The Central Arava region has a small number of populations with approximately

700 families (about 3360 people); in those families, there are 530 families working in agriculture (Central & Northern Arava -Tamar R&D, 2013) According to the Central

& Northern Arava -Tamar R&D in season 2019-2020, the land available to grow in Arava Valley is about 4000 hectares, comprising 74% vegetables, 25% of orchards and only 1% of cut flowers Although the weather conditions are extreme, the agriculture production is various, however, the Capsicum or they call pepper production is grown most in 25% of total arable land of Arava and occupy 50% of total vegetables (Central & Northern Arava -Tamar R&D, 2013) Besides, 10% of crop land are used for makes bio-organic farms to providing high quality of fruits and vegetables while the rest are those farms use low pesticide level which meet standards

of Israel Those farms contribute to the development of sustainable agriculture in Arava region The agriculture thriving in Arvava is proved by 60% of total Israel export of fresh vegetables, and exotic fish and flowers also occupy about 10% of ornamental exports (Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 2012) The project is conducted in the Moshav Idan, an agriculture village of Arava Valley, in the central

of the Negev Desert, Israel (Figure 2) Moshav Idan was established in 1979 by Jewish people who immigrated from other country such as Canada and the United State They came here to make a community and do agriculture in the desert There are over 69 families living in the Moshav and used land prepared by Jewish National Fund (JNF)

to open farms

Natureza is a big company founded in 2012 which is cooperated of three partners named David Ohana, Ohad Finer and David Ashi The company focuses on produce vary agriculture production, providing in internal market and exporting to Europe market The total area of Natureza farm is about 120 hectares, growing many types of fruit and vegetable such as tomato, date, eggplant, melon, watermelon, eggplant, zucchini, mango, litchee, onion, grape, and garlic The company has about 100 workers and internship students from many countries such as Vietnam, Thailand, Kenya, Fiji, Cambodia, Laos, Timor Leister Packing vegetable and farming are two main businesses of Natureza company

The project is implemented in a tomato farm named “A Dudu”, Natureza company, Moshav Idan The tomato is grown in a greenhouse with total area of the farm is one hectare

Figure 2 Moshav Idan (Google Earth, 2021)

1.2 Research’s objectives

1.2.1 Objectives

The main target of the project is to assess the efficiency of drip irrigation

technology on agriculture production By comparing to other irrigation methods, the

research will indicate whether drip irrigation expresses better results than when

applying traditional irrigation ways

Furthermore, the research will provide the results about how much water is saved

and how much yield increase when applying drip irrigation in tomato farm

On the other hand, the study about drip irrigation will provide more information

about the installation and operation of this irrigation method It also shows the

advantages and disadvantages when applying drip irrigation

1.2.2 Professional expertise

Create a chance for students to apply knowledge of agriculture and environment learned in class to practical, using the theory at school to apply in a manufacturing environment Students can enhance the needed skills and techniques through learning

by doing Answering the questions by instruction of farmers and teachers who experts

in this field are

1.3 Research questions and hypotheses

Drip irrigation is not a new technology in the agriculture sector and is applied in many countries in the world However, not everyone can understand the operation of drip irrigation and the advantages of this technology have, especially the efficiency of drip irrigation in water management in arid areas and go up the yield of agriculture products This research would focus on answering these questions:

- Does drip irrigation work better than sprinkler irrigation or traditional irrigation applied in tomato farms?

- How much water drip irrigation method can save compared to sprinkler irrigation?

- What is the difference in tomato yield when applied drip irrigation instead of a sprinkler system?

- What are the benefits of using a drip irrigation system and its limitation?

The project results will confirm one of these two hypotheses:

• Null Hypothesis: The drip irrigation system works effectively in

increasing the yield of agriculture production and economizing water sources than the sprinkler system

• Alternative Hypothesis: The drip irrigation method may not be efficient

to save water or produce high yields for farmers

1.4 Limitations

The experiment of assessing the efficiency of drip irrigation in save water and increasing yield was executed in a tomato farm of Natureza company, Moshav Idan, Arava Valley, Israel If the research was conducted in Israel, it was because this country is well-known for developing agriculture with high technology applications Although there were some basic models of drip irrigation appeared in some places before, the first modern drip irrigation system was used and developed in Israel by Simcha Blass, who known as the “father” of drip irrigation (Nhabeagri, 2020) Furthermore, the Arava Valley is located in the Negev desert where has an extreme climate and water scarcity Farming in this area seems unthinkable In reality, Arava Valley is one of the most developed agriculture areas in Israel where provide a great number of food production for Israelis and export to many other countries Therefore, the study was implemented in Arava Valley aim to discover what a miracle of drip irrigation technology could turn a "dead land" of the desert into an agricultural heartland in Israel Besides, the Natureza company has the biggest farm with plentiful agriculture products and applies many modern technologies in Moshav Idan Thus, that was an ideal place to do the research about drip irrigation systems The

experiment was also executed on a tomato farm that crop is planted popularly in the world

On the other hand, the limitation of time and finance made the study could not expand to other crops However, it is believed that the results applied to tomato farms still can reflect properly the efficiency of using drip irrigation in saving water and increasing the yield of crops

PART II LITERATURE REVIEW

In 2010, Panigrahi et al compared the influence of two irrigation methods, drip and furrow irrigation, in terms of the water use and the yield of tomatoes The study was implemented in the Regional Research and Technology Transfer Station, India for three years from 2002 to 2004, on sandy loam soil that similar soil property in Avara Valley The experiment was designed with a random block comprising four treatments, three of them were set up for drip irrigation and the rest is for furrow irrigation, including:

T1: Drip irrigation at 100% crop evapotranspiration (ETc) replenishment

T2: Drip irrigation at 80% ETc replenishment

T3: Drip irrigation at 60% ETc replenishment

T4: Furrow irrigation at 1.2 IW: CPE (IW = irrigation water of depth 5 cm and CPE = cumulative pan evaporation)

The results showed that the treatment T1 gave the highest value of both yield and water saving The yield of tomato for T1 was about 180 q/ha compared to T2, T3, T4 had 162.77, 145.12, 156.861/ha respectively Compared to furrow irrigation, the drip irrigation at 100% crop evapotranspiration replenishment saved about 17.9% cost Furthermore, the research also pointed out that both vertical and horizontal movement

of soil moisture content maintained a higher value than the other treatments Although the climatic condition and tomato variety of the experiment is not the same as those

in Arava Valley, the study of Indian researchers proved that more effective drip

irrigation in terms of saving water cost and increasing the yield of tomato than conventional furrow irrigation

Another recent study by Rakibuzzaman et al (2018) has conducted an experiment

on the rooftop of BARI-14 tomato variety between two irrigation methods which were drip irrigation and conventional irrigation The research was implemented at Academic Building, Sher-e-Bangla Agriculture University in 5 months from November of 2017 to March of 2018 Through comparing plant characteristics comprising a number of leaves, number of flowers and clusters, the height of the plant, number of fruit plants, the length and weight of fruit, and the yield, they realized that these characteristics of plants applied drip irrigation were higher than the conventional irrigation method Eighty percent of water was saved and 38% increase in water use efficiency by applied drip irrigation compared to a conventional system Furthermore, the yield of this tomato variety also went up 30% by the drip irrigation system Although it is an experiment conducted in a small area of the rooftop garden, the group researchers illustrated the better performance of tomatoes in both appearance and yield by using drip irrigation

A study in California Central Valley about the effects of overhead and drip irrigation systems on transplanted tomato growth and tomato yield was implemented

by Mitchell et al (2014) in two years 2010 and 2012 Based on the evapotranspiration demands of tomato plants, the researchers put a similar amount of water for both overhead and drip irrigation systems They assessed the crop growth based on two factors which were the percent of canopy coverage and biomass accumulation

aboveground The analysis of results showed that crop growth was the same in the early growing season, but higher during the second half of seasons in the drip irrigation systems Furthermore, it was indicated that the total yield of tomatoes in

2012 was higher than in 2010 by 38%, and the average yield of tomatoes in two years for drip irrigation was 48% greater than the overhead system The study has not compared the water saved efficiency for both irrigation systems, however, they proved that applying drip irrigation systems for tomatoes brought more advantages Another group of researchers including Tagar, Chandio, Mari, Wagan (2012) have done an experiment on tomatoes in Umar Kot to compare the effectiveness between drip and furrow irrigation methods The study was implemented in a field of farmers with an area was about 4000 m2, divided into two equal parts with sizes 40m

X 50m One part would be grown tomatoes applied drip irrigation method and another applied by furrow irrigation method The soil features included 1.16 g/cm3 dry bulk density and 28.5% field capacity, the soil property in the field was clay loam According to the results of the research, it was indicated that the better productivity

of drip irrigation than the furrow irrigation method 56.4% of water saved by using drip irrigation while the yield of tomato using drip irrigation method was also higher 22% compared to the conventional irrigation method It was also shown the water used efficiency of drip and furrow irrigation method were 4.87 and 1.66 respectively This research has clearly proved the better performance of drip irrigation than the traditional irrigation method and suggested farmers get a higher yield and save more water by applying drip irrigation

In 1988, two researchers named Kaniszewski and Dysko had a study about the effect of three different irrigation methods: Drip irrigation, hand watering, and micro-jet system, on the yield of tomato grown under the greenhouses The soil suction condition when applied different irrigation methods were 0.02 MPa, with the amount

of 2 l per plant The result of research illustrated that the yield of tomatoes used the micro-yet system was highest, even though the difference compared to drip irrigation was not considerable Hand watering was an irrigation method that had the smallest yield Although the topic only mentioned the impact of irrigation method on yield, the research has figured out that drip irrigation was the most effective method of saving water, proved by 35% and 25% of the water used lower than hand water by hose and micro yet system It also found out the hand watering consumed the highest water per kilogram of tomato fruit with 41l kg and the lowest belonged to the drip irrigation method with 22-26 l kg However, this research has not clearly shown the advantages

of increasing the yield of drip irrigation compared to other irrigation methods

In short, these studies above shown the better performance of drip irrigation than the traditional irrigation method However, they have not indicated the advantages of drip irrigation in their research, as well as made the research in extreme natural conditions like Arava area The harsh climate would help to prove to some extent the efficiency of drip irrigation more clearly

PART III MATERIALS AND METHODS

3.1 Study area

To assess the effectiveness of drip irrigation in saving water and increasing yield

by comparing with sprinkler irrigation method on tomatoes, the experiment was conducted in a greenhouse farm named A DuDu of Natureza company, Moshav Idan, Arava Valley, Israel, during the period from September of 2020 to May of 2021 The coordinate system is 30o49’11’’N and 35o15’49’’E, the elevation is about -155m below sea level As can be seen from figure 3 The A DuDu farm was placed in the Negev desert which the ground was covered with sand and stones Around the farm were many other greenhouses, however, there was no tree around this area The tomato variety named Ikram tomato was provided by Syngenta company

According to the research of two scientists, Yair Goldreich and Ora Karni who have done the study about the climate and temperature in Arava Valley (2001), solar radiation and global radiation were the highest in the world In Eilat, the maximum radiation recorded was in 27.5 MJ/m2/day in June and the minimum was in December with 11.2 MJ/m2/day (Goldreich, 2001) In Sapir where is the center of the Arava region and about 30 km far from the research area, the temperature recorded ranging from 8oC in January to under 40oC in July (Goldreich, 2001) In fact, the temperature

in the study area sometimes got 44 oC in summer The rainfall of this region was very small from 25 to 50 mm per year, compared to the great number of evaporations up

to 3500 mm (Goldreich, 2001)

Figure 3 The experiment location, Farm A Dudu, Moshav Idan, Israel (2021)

3.2 Preparing before cultivation

After the crop of the previous season was totally clean, the land was prepared for

a new season It was plowed by tractors and then leveled Next, the whole ground of the greenhouse was covered by transparent plastic under the high temperature of sunshine for about one month At that time, the temperature of summer was up to 44 degrees Celsius The purpose of plastic covering is to kill weeds, grasses, and pathogens in the soil The experiment tends to assess the effectiveness of drip irrigation by measuring the yield of tomato and water used and comparing it to sprinkler irrigation Despite the total area of the greenhouse is one hectare, the total area of the experiment was about 300 m2 divided into two equal portions One portion was about 3m x 50m for applied drip irrigation method and another same portion

applied sprinkler irrigation method In each portion, two-line of tomato plants were grown with 135 plants each line

3.3 Installation of Drip Irrigation

Drip irrigation is considered a century invention to transform the lives of many people in the world to produce more food with less water, fertilizer, and energy Drip irrigation is a system that delivers water and nutrients directly to the root zone of plants (Netafim, 2021) It has the ability to provide the right amount of water and fertilizers at the right time under easy control by smartphone app It also can be set up

to appropriate to different requirements of plants, thus the crops can optimally grow

by receiving exactly what they need and when they need it (Netafim, 2021) Especially, it helps farmers optimize their costs by saving water, fertilizer, and energy and increasing yield for them Drip irrigation is operated by delivery of water and liquid fertilizers across the field by pipes system named driplines Plants are grown close to the drip emitters, then each drop containing water and fertilizers will be irrigated directly to the root's zone of plants across to the entire field (Netafim, 2021) Drip irrigation is a complicated system including many devices, equipment, and materials Water in the big tank has flowed through a big pipe to the pump station In the pump station, water would be cleaned through a set of filters before delivering into the field The pump station was installed by engineers who are experts in this field (figure 4) After the pump station, the water from the mainline would flow into the sub-main line 63 mm, then go to the inside greenhouse The experiment was prepared by setting up the drip pipe on the farm Two drip pipes 16 mm with a length