Assessing drip irrigation system performance in a blueberry crop to improve the water use efficiency and productivity within the Water-Energy-Food-Nexus

A drip system evaluation performance was done in a blueberry (Vaccinium corymbosum L.) commercial crop of 10 years in Concordia, Entre Ríos province, Argentina. Crop is planted in rows each 3,5 m and plants in the row each 0,75 m. The drip system includes two drip irrigation tubes per blueberry row, with drippers each 30 cm. of 1,1 L per hour at a pressure of 11 m of water head. Roots of blueberry are very shallow, that characteristic combined with sandy soils of the area with very low water holding capacity, requires the application of very low quantities of water in each irrigation application. The objective of the experiment was to measure the current flow of the drippers of the 10 years old system, in 400 points of the 25 has system, obtaining 1) uniformity coefficient of Christiansen (1942) (CU), 2) uniformity coefficient of application of Keller and Karmelli (1974) (CUa), 3) uniformity coefficient of the minor quarter of Pizarro (1987) (CUqm), 4) total distribution efficiency of Holzapfel (2008) (EDT), 5) the wetting time in drip irrigation (WTdi) and 6) the recession time in drip irrigation (RTdi) of Pannunzio et al. (2016). Results showed that EDT is the better tool because includes the design and management criteria of the system, the characteristics of the better irrigation scheduling for the crop including particularities of the soils of the area and the implications of slopes and kind of drippers selected in WTdi and Rtdi.