Data di Pubblicazione:
2022
Citazione:
Automatic irrigation in paddy fields: a farm-scale application in Northern Italy / F. Gangi, G. Ottaiano, A. Galli, O. Gharsallah, A. Facchi, D. Masseroni. ((Intervento presentato al 12. convegno International AIIA Conference tenutosi a Palermo nel 2022.
Abstract:
Rice is one of the major staple food crops in the world. In Europe, Italy is the main
producer, with almost all of the production concentrated in the north of the country.
Traditionally rice is grown in fields flooded from before seeding to close to harvest. This
water management technique requires a huge labor for farmers who have to manually adjust
inlet and outlet gates in order to maintain a constant ponding water level in the fields. A new
water soft-path strategy based on the introduction of automatic water flow rate regulation
systems is under investigation in a rice farm of about 40 ha located south of Milan, in
northern Italy. The
purpose of the
experimental activity is
to assess the
environmental and
economic sustainability
of the introduction of
innovative water flow
monitoring and
automation systems at
the farm level. The
installed instrumentation
is constituted by four
PikoGate® automatic gates positioned in strategic points of the farm irrigation network and
Ferit® water level sensors installed in five groups of fields. In the first year of the
experimentation (2021) automatic gates and water level sensors were installed and tested;
agro-meteorological, soil, crop and groundwater level data for the computation of a farm
water balance were moreover collected. In the 2022 agricultural season, a newly developed
irrigation algorithm will allow the automatic management of the farm gates to maintain a
predetermined ponding water level in the fields, which may change in time based on site-
specific conditions. Results achieved so far in the experimentation will be discussed in terms
of economic and environmental sustainability, whereas the technical scalability of these
automatic systems will be analyzed in cooperation with local irrigation agencies and farmers.
Tipologia IRIS:
14 - Intervento a convegno non pubblicato
Keywords:
Rice; automation; monitoring system; sustainability
Elenco autori:
F. Gangi, G. Ottaiano, A. Galli, O. Gharsallah, A. Facchi, D. Masseroni
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