Prof. Dr. Abdul-Wahab Khudair Al-Obaid

Department of Soil Sciences and Water Resources

Irrigation scheduling is based on the amount of water to be added and the date of addition. These two elements are essential to the success of the irrigation process in the different ways and methods. A defect in one of these two elements will negatively affect plant growth. Often the difference in irrigation dates (irrigation interval) leads to the failure to obtain the normal growth of the plant. It may sometimes lead to plant growth failure even if the field conditions are optimal; especially when exposing the plant to water stress (not watering in time).

One of the irrigation methods that have overcome this problem is exuding irrigation system. This method is old in concept and new in its development and application. It is similar to the drip irrigation system, but instead of the drips, taps are indicated. Taps are porous bodies in which water exudes from the inside to the outside. Therefore, the water is constantly opened around the clock since the beginning of cultivation.

The taps are buried in the area of the root zone in order for the roots to absorb the exuded water directly, and accordingly it is necessary to calibrate the irrigation network to give the appropriate rate of taps in proportion to the amount of water consumption losses through evaporation-transpiration.

Recently, many published research papers, master's and doctoral theses were done using pottery taps on many vegetable crops, including cucumbers, tomatoes, potatoes and beans. One of the problems of the application was the variation in the amount of discharge between these taps according to the growth level of the crop.

Through patents, this problem has been overcome by manufacturing cement taps. With the progress of science and the entry of nanotechnology into the field of irrigation, plastic tubes containing nano-taps were manufactured. It has become widespread in many countries of the world and is available in local markets. This is because it operates at very low operating pressures (0.2-0.3 m).