Experimental research in irrigation by condensation in solarium
2019
Mircea, C., National Inst. of Research-Development for Machines and Installations Designed to Agriculture and Food Industry, Bucharest (Romania) | Manea, D., National Inst. of Research-Development for Machines and Installations Designed to Agriculture and Food Industry, Bucharest (Romania) | Marin, E., National Inst. of Research-Development for Machines and Installations Designed to Agriculture and Food Industry, Bucharest (Romania) | Mateescu, M., National Inst. of Research-Development for Machines and Installations Designed to Agriculture and Food Industry, Bucharest (Romania)
Irrigation is one of the most important technological sequences with a strong impact on the physical characteristics of the soil through the wetting process with positive implications in plant metabolism. Unexpected but significant, climate change exposes crops to cold or heat that affect agriculture and product quality, leading to a massive investment to control the plant’s climate with fossil fuels. These global negative trends present a major technological challenge and a need to invest in new technology solutions to replace the traditional irrigation technology with an innovative one. Irrigation by condensation is an inexhaustible water resource by combination of high air relative moisture, air temperature and low water temperature flowing through a closed loop system. This paper presents the results of the experimental researches of irrigation by condensation installation, which was designed and manufactured by INMA Bucharest, the installation being located inside a solarium. The experimental researches aimed to compare the soil moisture regime registered on three soil depth levels in two air relative moisture conditions for two types of pipes, copper and PEHD. The moisture that condenses on the pipes’ surface flows by gravity into the soil and was measured in five measuring points located on two diagonals of the experimental plot. The results showed that the soil moisture at the sampling points for the copper pipes was higher than for the PEHD pipes, in both cases for the air relative moisture. In other words, the amount of condensed water extracted from the air on the surface of the copper pipes was higher than with the PEHD pipes. At the same time, significantly higher values for soil moisture were obtained for the copper pipes when the relative humidity of the air was 60 %. Conclusions from the experimental research have highlighted that in many cases no additional irrigation is required to maintain plant survival and food production.
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