FIELD STUDY TO EVALUATE THE PERFORMANCE OF CENTER PIVOT SPRINKLER IRRIGATION SYSTEMS UNDER DESERT CONDITIONS WEST OF IRAQ

Abstract

A field experiment was conducted on Saqlawia-Al-Anbar governorate during the duration from 15/11/2013 to 15/05/2014, to evaluate the performance of three center pivot sprinkler irrigation systems under desert conditions of west of Iraq. Speeds of these systems were calibrated with depths of water. Irrigation uniformity and discharges for some nozzles through directly collecting outlet waters were evaluated as well. Results indicated differences among values of uniformity of application coefficient in spite of the similarity among center pivot system used in this trail. An increment of 13% and 23% for the systems 2 and 3 respectively, compared to system 1 obtained. Different in water applied on irrigated area were also observed as a result of their connection to uniformity coefficient, in addition, differences in discharges for pivot irrigation systems were observed in spite of constancy of operating pressure (30 psi) and percentage of systems speed (50%). Besides, the delay in making continuous maintenance resulted in clogging some nozzles which affected uniformity coefficient, depths of water applied and nozzles discharges and affected negatively on distribution uniformity of such systems.