Software for Design and Layout of Drip and Sprinkler Irrigation Systems

A reliable and suitable irrigation water supply can result in vast improvements in agricultural production and assure the economic vitality of the region. Drip and sprinkler irrigation systems are relatively new and very efficient method for placement of water to the crop position. The design and layout of drip and sprinkler irrigation systems consist of the collection of data from different sources with respect to various parameters to arrive at a feasible and practicable design for adoption in the field. It requires tremendous efforts and energy, planning, money to pool the information for the proper design of the systems and also, it is time consuming and cumbersome: Most of the designs require both qualitative and quantitative information to arrive at possible design from the reports and literature. The effort has been made in the developed software to integrate both design procedures and databases. This saves a lot of time and various design options can be prepared and compared before laying the final design in the field. The software for design and layout of drip and sprinkler irrigation systems has been developed using Microsoft Visual Basic 6.0 as front end and Microsoft Access as back end. The 'Senior Scientist, Computer Applications, Central Institute of Agricultural Engineering, Nabi Bagh, Berasia Road, Bhopal, M.P, PIN 462 038. E-mail: user need to provide the basic information regarding drips and sprinklers such as plot size and crop to be grown, soil type, available discharge, differences in topographic height, available pumps, water quality etc to start the design process. The software allows the user to select the various parameters through different screens and finally generate a complete design layout and approximate cost of the system based on the selected parameters.