Potato has played a major role as staple food in Sweden since Jonas Alströmer brought it intothe country in the 18th century and is considered by many to be one of the essences of”swedishness”. About 826.000 tonnes are produced yearly on an area of approximately 20.000 –25.000 ha today and potatoes are mostly grown in the southern parts of Sweden(www.jordbruksverket.se). Potato is best grown in light textured soils with good drainage, but thisalso leads to irrigation being necessary to provide enough moisture for the sensitive potato duringa normal Swedish year. Normally, drip irrigation is used since it enables the farmer to control theexact volumes of water and nutrition being applied.This study was conducted in 2007-2008 (the report was finished in spring 2022 though) at whatwas then known as The Department for Soil Sciences (today Department of soil and environment)at SLU, Uppsala. There was an ongoing project aimed at finding suitable strategies for irrigatingpotato, and the aim of this study was to investigate which one of the following strategies is bestsuited for the soils used in the experiments:• 1 hour every day or 4 hours every four days• Placing the dripperlines on the soil surface or bury them 30 cm into the soil.The study was conducted in two parts, where the first part tested the two time intervals with thedripperlines on the soil surface and the second part with the dripperlines buried into the soil.Measurements of soil water content and infiltration were performed during both parts and for thesecond part, soil water tension was also measured. When the measurements were finished, thesame strategies were modelled in Hydrus-2D with similar soil parameters to see if the programcould be a useful tool when simulating similar scenarios. Water content was measured after thefirst part of the experiment was finished, but no distinct wetting front could be seen and nodifference in water content could be seen since measurements were delayed due to bad weatherconditions. The water content was measured throughout the second part and a water front couldbe detected directly after an irrigation event, but all signs of irrigation were gone 24 hours later.The results of the Hydrus2D simulations did not agree completely with the experimental datasince the sand used in the model differ from the ones used in the experiments.Conclusions that could be drawn were that soils with water holding capacities as poor as the onesused in the experiments should rather be irrigated often than with longer intervals. Also, themodelling with Hydrus2D did not give the same results for these soils and therefore, no directconclusions about the program’s applicability could be drawn in this study.Key words: potato, drip irrigation, strategies, sand, simulations, Hydrus-2D, infiltration, water holdingcapacity.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UPSALLA1/oai:DiVA.org:uu-480209 |
| Date | January 2022 |
| Creators | Lundahl, Mikaela |
| Publisher | Uppsala universitet, Institutionen för geovetenskaper, SLU, Institutionen för mark och miljö |
| Source Sets | DiVA Archive at Upsalla University |
| Language | Swedish |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Student thesis, info:eu-repo/semantics/bachelorThesis, text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Rights | info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess |
| Relation | UPTEC W, 1401-5765 ; 22025 |
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