Articles
A cost benefit analysis of variable rate irrigation in pear orchards in Belgium
Article number
1409_26
Pages
191 – 198
Language
English
Abstract
Our recent and ongoing research has shown that significant reductions of water use from ±380 up to ±800 m3 ha‑1 season‑1 in ‘Conference’ pear orchards in Belgium are feasible by variable rate irrigation (VRI) using a combination of UAV imagery and real-time soil moisture sensor data compared to uniform rate irrigation (URI). These improvements, however, come at a cost, which might prevent the adoption of VRI by the growers.
In this study we investigated under which scenarios the benefits of VRI outweigh the costs and their corresponding payback times.
To this end, an Excel based calculation tool was developed.
The results demonstrate that a short payback time of around one year can only be reached for VRI compared to URI provided that it concerns a large orchard of minimum 10 ha equipped with a limited number of sensor sets, a financial gain of minimally 2% and reduced pruning and thinning costs.
Water, fuel and energy efficiency for URI and VRI reached 23.47 and 42.33 kg pears m‑3 water, 169,26 and 309.88 kg pears L‑1 fuel and 42.31 and 77.47 kg pears kWh‑1, respectively.
Hence, VRI further improves drip irrigation and enables to strongly increase production with the same input of resources.
In this study we investigated under which scenarios the benefits of VRI outweigh the costs and their corresponding payback times.
To this end, an Excel based calculation tool was developed.
The results demonstrate that a short payback time of around one year can only be reached for VRI compared to URI provided that it concerns a large orchard of minimum 10 ha equipped with a limited number of sensor sets, a financial gain of minimally 2% and reduced pruning and thinning costs.
Water, fuel and energy efficiency for URI and VRI reached 23.47 and 42.33 kg pears m‑3 water, 169,26 and 309.88 kg pears L‑1 fuel and 42.31 and 77.47 kg pears kWh‑1, respectively.
Hence, VRI further improves drip irrigation and enables to strongly increase production with the same input of resources.
Authors
J. Vandermaesen, B. Vanhoutte, V. Nelissen, D. Bylemans, S. Remy
Keywords
drought, energy, payback time, resource efficiency, uniform rate irrigation, water use, sensor
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