Geokdepe, 20 June 2019: Scientists from the “Turkmensuwylymtaslama” research institute with the support of UNDP / GEF project on energy efficiency in water management sector, collected the first winter wheat harvest, which was watered using sprinkling irrigation method on the fields of a research site of 145 hectares in the Geokdepe etrap.

In 2018, the research started to study the possibilities of using sprinkling irrigation methods for cultivating agricultural crops, in particular, winter wheat on strongly saline soils. As part of the project, an irrigation system was built on a plot of 9.75 hectares on the basis of a circular irrigation machine.

Until now, these lands have been highly salinized, covered with weed and other vegetation, have extremely low nutrient content and have not been fully used for the cultivation of agricultural crops. In summer 2018, half of the area of this land plot was used to sow a leguminous crop - mung bean, as a cultivator for depleted and saline soils.

During the irrigation period of mung bean, it was noted that the technical parameters of artificial rain generated by a sprinkler designed for long-term climatic indicators of the irrigation area do not provide the necessary irrigation regime for plants at abnormally high air temperatures in the summer months of the year. According to the recommendations of design specialists and scientists of the institute, structural changes were made in the water production system on the field and the sprinkler nozzles were replaced with more productive ones, which made it possible to save the crops and get the planned harvest.

In autumn 2018, the entire land plot on an area of 9.75 hectares was planted with winter wheat of the variety “Batko”. Before sowing, mineral fertilizers were applied to the soil at the rate of 200 kg / ha of superphosphate during the growing season of winter wheat as a top dressing and 250 kg / ha of urea. Watering by sprinkling allowed to obtain uniform wheat sprouts over the entire area of the field. On each square meter of the field, about 350 full-fledged wheat shoots were obtained on average. Water supply in the volume of 300 - 400 cu. meters of water per 1 hectare of field with each irrigation, allowed to provide the necessary water-air regime in the root zone of the soil and thereby create favorable conditions for the growth and development of wheat.

In total for the entire irrigation period of winter wheat in the form of artificial rain for each hectare of the field 3320 cub. meters of water, which is 30 - 35% less than with traditional surface irrigation was used. Despite the extremely low productivity of the soil in the irrigated area, the average yield of winter wheat throughout the irrigated area by sprinkling was about 18 centners per hectare in the first year. At the same time, in the middle of the field, where the precursor of winter wheat was mung bean, the yield of wheat was about 27 kg / ha. The obtained results show the high efficiency of using summer crops of leguminous crops as a precursor of winter wheat crops.