Abstract
To date, most research works related to pitcher irrigation have focused mainly on the irrigation efficiency of the pitchers rather than correlating the irrigation efficiency with the physical characteristics of the pitchers. This study was carried out using pitchers with 3 different sizes. Volumetric water contents of soil were measured at different points and termed as observed values. The hydraulic conductivity of all the pitchers showed the same value of approximately 7×10-11ms-1, whereas the daily discharging rate of water varied from 1.6×10-4 to 6.0×10-4 m3. Moreover, soil water contents were predicted based on the physical characteristics of the pitchers by using HYDRUS-2D. Analysis of variance showed that the observed and the predicted values of soil water were highly correlated (R2=0.86). Therefore, the pitcher irrigation method investigated in this study can be considered as an efficient tool to irrigate the crops in arid land environment.
