Vol. 5, Issue 2, Part A (2023)

Drip irrigation system is the most efficient economical method for irrigation vegetable production. The objective of this study was to evaluate the hydraulic performance of three different types of emitter’s namely Regular gauge (RG), Compensating pressure (CP) and non-Compensating pressure (NCP) using eggplant (Solanum melonga L.) as a test of a crop. The experiment was conducted in a Faculty of Agricultural Science, University of Gezira during the period of October 2021 to march 2022. Parameters of hydraulic performance of drip emitters were average discharge (Qavg %), discharge variation (Qvar), coefficient uniformity (CU %), coefficient of manufacture variation (CV), emission uniformity (EU %) and statistical uniformity (US %). The treatments were laid out in a randomized complete block design (RCBD) with four replicates. The result showed that the values of (CU%), (CV), (EU%), (US%) and percentage emitters clogging (Pclog%) were 97.9%, 0.38, 40.7%, 58.6%, 1.9% and 96.4%, 0.43, 52.1%, 57.7%, 1.8% and 96.4%, 0.6, 28.3%, 47.5%, 1.3% for regular gauge (RG), compensating pressure (CP) and non-compensating pressure (NCP) respectively. It is considered coefficient uniformity (CU %), was excellent and found to be within the acceptable range while discharge variation (Qvar %), emission uniformity (EU %), coefficient of manufacture variation (CV), and statistical uniformity (Us %) were found to be within the range of poor and unacceptable. Result also showed significant differences among types of emitters on plant height, applied water, yield and water productivity of eggplant. The highest yield was obtained non-compensating pressure (NCP) (13279 kg/ha) while the lowest yield was obtained by regular gauge (RG) (8180 kg/ha). The highest water productivity was obtained by regular gauge (RG) (7.7 kg/m³), while the lowest value was obtained by compensating pressure (CP) (4.8 kg/m³). The study recommends that the best type of emitter was non-compensating pressure (NCP), because it produced the highest yield of eggplant.