A spreadsheet model to evaluate sloping furrow irrigation accounting for infiltration variability

A spreadsheet model was developed to evaluate the performance of furrow irrigation that accounts for soil variability and requires few field measurements. The model adjusts an advance trajectory to three (advance distance, advance time) points and, similarly, it adjusts a recession trajectory to three (recession distance, recession time) points. The head of the furrow (distance = 0) is one of the points used to adjust both trajectories. It then calculates the parameters of the infiltration equation using the two-point method (based on the volume balance equation with assumed surface shape parameters). The model gives the option to enter an estimate of the soil infiltration variability in order to account for this variation when calculating irrigation performance indicators. The combination of variance technique was used for this purpose. A set of irrigation performance indicators (distribution uniformity, application efficiency, tail water ratio, deep percolation ratio and deficit coefficient) is calculated, assuming that the infiltrated water follows a normal frequency distribution. To illustrate the evaluation method, it was applied to three irrigation events conducted on a sunflower field, with 234 m long furrows spaced 0.75 m apart. The evaluations were performed in two 3-furrow sets. The application efficiency was satisfactory in the first irrigation, but low in the other two. Uniformity was high in all three irrigations. The performance indicator that was most affected by soil variability was distribution uniformity. Considering soil spatial variability was important for more realistic determination of the infiltrated water distribution, and therefore of the deep percolation, but it had less importance for the determination of the application efficiency, due to the relevance of runoff in our field application.