Expenditures for irrigation of plantations of commodity crops

Problem of expenditures for irrigation of plantations was presented in the paper. Partition of costs for irrigation of plantation was given, including invest-ment costs, operating costs and technological costs. Advantages resulted from ir-rigation were given. Water requirement for irrigation was discussed. Irrigation systems currently applied on plantations (on example of potato plantation), were presented. Practical problems connected with water intake for irrigation, choice of pumps and transmission line of water were characterized. Discussion of irriga-tion facilities most often chosen for irrigation of potato plantation is also given. Investment costs for hose-reel machine were presented. An example of the irri-gated potato plantation (20 ha) was discussed, giving it’s operating costs of sprin-kler irrigation machine. ...

ASSESSMENT OF THE EFFECTIVENESS OF SPRINKLING TO PROTECT APPLE BLOSSOMS AGAINST SPRING FROST

Spring frosts can cause very significant losses on fruit farms. The most common method of active protection against frost is sprinkling. The aim of this study was to assess the effectiveness of a sprinkling system used to protect apple trees against the effects of a spring frost. The experiment was conducted on the MÄ…czewscy Fruit Farm. The orchard in which the observations were made is equipped with a system of sprinklers. When the temperature readings showed values close to zero, the sprinkler system was activated. Due to a limited water supply, one row of sprinklers had not been activated, and thus some of the trees were not sprayed at all. The assessment of fruit yield carried out in the autumn of 2015 demonstrated high effectiveness of the sprinkling used to protect apple trees against the spring frost. The frost had damaged most of the flowers of the unprotected trees, which resulted in a decrease in yield of as much as 85 - 93%. ...