Monday, February 6, 2012

Small Scale Drip Irrigation Erongo: The Solution for Household Food Security

Small scale drip irrigation has huge potential for improving household food security in areas where water is available. Mr. R.D. Burger from the Ministry of Agriculture (Extension Services) experimented with a small home made drip irrigation system in an area of 30x40m (1200m square) in order to establish the effectiveness of such a system on a small piece of land, like in the case of a homestead garden.

Statistics:
Crop: maize (Zama Star)
Planting density: 20cm spacing between seeds/plants. 400 Plants dubbel sided  per 40m row (furrow). 15 Rows   (40m) with a spacing of 2m between rows
Fertilizer: Kraal Manure, phosphoric acid (in water) , Urea (in water)
Total number of plants: 6000
Total number of maize cobs harvested: 12 000 (2 per plant)
Total weight of maize grain: 1920kg (128kg/row)/1200m square
Production potential per hectare: 16000kg/ha

The video can be accessed at: http://youtu.be/bCBpS__qmvk






1 comment:

  1. Thank you sujai. I believe that small scale drip irrigation with solar technology in rural areas is the most sustainable method to achieve household food security and improve rural poverty

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