FIELD PERFORMANCE OF THE CAPILLARY WICK IRRIGATION (CAPILLARIGATION) SYSTEM FOR RICE-BASED CROPS

Abstract

The Philippines is suffering from the devastating effect of climate change. During extreme
drought periods when it is already too risky to plant rice, farmers are advised to plant vegetables and other
short duration crops so as to maximize the use of limited water supply and have an alternate source of income.
This study evaluated the field performance of a locally developed irrigation system designed to be as efficient
as possible so as to maximize the use of the limited supply of water during such conditions and as low cost as
possible so that smallholder farmers could afford to use it. The resulting prototype is a do-it-yourself type
irrigation system which is almost similar in layout as that of the drip irrigation system, except that, among other
things, it makes use of capillary wicks as drippers (hence called as capillarigation system) and maximizes the
use of local and recycled materials. Results of field tests consistently showed that the capillarigation system
outperformed the existing farmers’ irrigation practices (drip and hose) in terms of water productivity. In a field
planted with green pepper (Capsicum annuum L.), the system yielded higher water productivity of 36.6 g/L as
compared to the drip irrigation system (9.9 g/L). The same trend was observed when tested in another field
planted with eggplants (Solanum melongena esculentum). Being able to work with unfiltered water, with very
low operating pressure (15-20cm) and discharge rate (20-30mL/h), the capillarigation system offers
advantages when compared with other existing irrigation methods. It however still needs more field tests so
as to further evaluate its performance under various crop, field, soil, and water conditions.