Subsurface irrigation has been widely adopted in the production of highly mechanised crops, such as sugar cane and lucerne, because it helps to improve labour efficiencies and reduce damage to irrigation infrastructure.
Added bonuses are that water is delivered directly into the root zone, reducing water losses caused by evaporation in overhead irrigation, and farmers can apply fertiliser via irrigation, which reduces labour costs and improves fertiliser efficiency.
Hardly any fruit and grape farmers, however, are using subsurface irrigation in their orchards in South Africa. In ‘The pros and cons of subsurface irrigation’, which featured in Farmer's Weekly on 18 August 2018, both Pieter Fouché, viticulturist of Graham Beck Wine Estate near Robertson in the Western Cape, and Dr Philip Myburgh, a retired researcher of the Agricultural Research Centre Nietvoorbij, advised against the use of subsurface irrigation.
The deep root soil amendment irrigation system pod is filled with a medium that has a good water holding capacity to help reduce run-off