Assessment of emitter clogging with multiple fouling and root intrusion in sub-surface drip irrigation during 5-year sugarcane growth

Abstract

Emitter clogging is a primary barrier constraining the widespread and efficient application of subsurface drip irrigation (SDI). The increasing risk of SDI buried emitter’s clogging due to physical, chemical, biological and root intrusion, possess considerable technical and economical challenges. Thus, a five-year sugarcane field experiment was conducted to experimentally examine the SDI emitter clogging. X-ray diffraction (XRD), high-throughput sequencing (16 S rRNA) and multi-level statistics were used to characterize the sugarcane SDI emitter multi-type clogging. Roots intrusion mainly found in severe and complete clogging accounted for less than 5.0% of total clogging. Conversely, the slight clogging (70.1%±8.41%) and partial clogging (20.0% ± 6.99%) caused by chemical, physical and biological fouling, showed positive linear correlations with SDI Dra and CU. The binary interactions of precipitates - particulates contributed 26.6%, and ternary interactions of precipitates - particulates - biofouling contributed 46.1% to sugarcane SDI emitter clogging. Sugarcane SDI could be successfully meet the irrigation and fertilizer demands for more than five years.