LAHORE: Being a water-stressed country moving fast towards being water-scarce state, Pakistan needs to improve its crop irrigation system, which presently consumes around 90 per cent of the all available resources.

Federal and provincial governments are allocating funds for promoting efficient irrigation systems like drip, sprinklers and pivots, but the amount earmarked for the purpose is too low. There is a dearth of awareness about the schemes being launched by the government for the purpose.

Though the officialdom seems to be inclined towards preferring drip irrigation private sector, experts advocate for introducing pivots as the durable option.

No doubt, drip irrigation helps save more water but the system demands application of acid and periodical chlorination of the drip lines to dissolve the mineral concentration that can plug emitters, says Louis Lategan, an irrigation expert from South Africa.

This is not the issue with above-ground sprinklers having nozzles 16 times bigger than a drip emitter. As these are visible all the time, plugging and leaking are not a problem. which also helps in saving up to 65 percent of water because of uniform use of the commodity in pivot system as against traditional flood watering, while yield in the modern irrigation is also 25 percent more maintaining the crop quality, says Mr Lategan, who is currently working with the Nishat Agriculture Farming (Pvt) Limited.

During a visit to the farm house, he told this reporter that the subsurface drip systems cannot stimulate seed germination if the drip tape is placed below the root zone. Whereas sprinkler heads on a pivot apply water similar to the effect you get from rain, causing seeds to germinate. “In fact, pivots can easily be fitted with a dual sprinkler package — one for germina­tion and the other for irrigation.”

Urging the government to subsidize the pivot sprinkling for irrigation purposes as it lasts longer than the drip system, he argues that the pivot technology also helps in saving previous time, which matters most in the agriculture sector.

According to him, around 120 acres can be irrigated in just eight hours through the pivot system, while in the traditional flood irrigation it takes four hours to irrigate one acre of land.

It is also an efficient system for dry or sandy soils having minimum risk of crop failure as it saves both from low irrigation or excessive watering.

He says the pivot system has been successfully tested at the Nishat farms for two crops – Alfalfa and Rhodes grass. In Alfalfa, they have achieved 26-29 percent crude protein against 17-18 percent obtained under flood irrigation system. In Rhodes grass, 12-14 percent crude protein has been realized through the pivot against just 5-7 percent under the flooding, whereas it also helps reduce electricity usage (65 percent less), and efficient and precision application of fertilizers and pesticides, etc.

Published in Dawn, April 13th, 2019