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1. Testing Novel New Drip Emitter with Variable Diameters for a Variable Rate Drip Irrigation

   https://doi.org/10.3390/agriculture11020087  

   AL-agele, Hadi A.; Nackley, Lloyd; Higgins, Chad (February 2021, Agriculture)

   null (Ed.)

   This research presents a new variable rate drip irrigation (VRDI) emitter design that can monitor individual water drops. Conventional drip systems cannot monitor the individual water flow rate per emitter. Application uniformity for conventional drip emitters can be decreased by clogged emitters, irregular emitter orifices, and decreases in pressure. A VRDI emitter can overcome the irrigation challenges in the field by increasing water application uniformity for each plant and reducing water losses. Flow rate is affected by the diameter of the delivery pipe and the pressure of the irrigation delivery system. This study compares the volumetric water flow rate for conventional drip emitters and new VRDI emitters with variable diameters inner (1 mm, 1.2 mm, 1.4 mm, and 1.6 mm) and outside (3 mm, 3.5 mm, 4 mm, and 4.5 mm) with three pressures (34 kPa, 69 kPa, and 103 kPa). The tests revealed that the new VRDI emitter had flow rates that increased as the operating pressure increased similar to a conventional drip tube. The flow rate was slightly increased in the VRDI with pressure, but even this increase did not show large changes in the flow rate. The flow rate of the conventional drip tube was 88% larger than the VRDI emitter for all pressures (p < 0.05). However, operating pressure did not affect the drop sizes at the VRDI emitter, but the generalized linear mixed models (GLM) results show that volume per drop was impacted by the outside diameter of the VRDI outlet (p < 0.05). The interaction between the inner and outside diameter was also significant at p < 0.01, and the interaction between outside diameter and pressure was statistically significant at p < 0.01. The electronic components used to control our VRDI emitter are readily compatible with off-the-shelf data telemetry solutions; thus, each emitter could be controlled remotely and relay data to a centralized data repository or decision-maker, and a plurality of these emitters could be used to enable full-field scale VRDI. 

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2. The tradeoff between water savings and salinization prevention in dryland irrigation

   https://doi.org/10.1016/j.advwatres.2023.104604  

   Karimzadeh, Saeed; Hartman, Sarah; Chiarelli, Davide Danilo; Rulli, Maria Cristina; D'Odorico, Paolo (January 2024, Advances in Water Resources)

   Soil salinization is a global phenomenon that affects large tracts of arid farmland worldwide. It contributes to the loss of soil fertility, declining yields, and – in the most severe cases – land unsuitability for cultivation. Irrigation water applications are both the main cause of and the solution to, anthropogenic (or ‘secondary’) salinization because salt typically enters the soil column as dissolved in irrigation water and leaves it through excess water applications (e.g., leaching). Excess leaching, which places additional water costs in areas affected by water scarcity, can be achieved with different irrigation techniques and practices. Here, by complementing a process-based crop water model with a salt balance of the shallow soil, we investigate the tradeoff between root zone salinization and water conservation to limit withdrawals from the water source. We evaluate how such a tradeoff is achieved under different irrigation technology and excess leaching practices. Considering as a case study the cultivation of tomatoes in Egypt, we find that drip and furrow irrigation allows for better control of salt accumulation, thus preventing crop exposure to salt stress. Drip irrigation achieves this goal with minimal water applications because it maintains the soil wetter. Thus, the (rare) rainfall events find more suitable conditions to drain the excess moisture. Conversely, by using more irrigation water (and ‘less efficiently’), furrow irrigation allows for higher rates of soil drainage and salt leaching. The irrigation schedule typically adopted with sprinkler irrigation allows for soil drying, thus limiting the ability of rainfall events to drain the soil and leach its salts. Collectively, these results highlight the key role of irrigation technology and practices in the management of secondary salinity in dryland agriculture. Specifically, there is a tradeoff between minimizing water use and preventing salt accumulation in the root zone. Drip irrigation exhibits the co-benefit of achieving both goals, while furrow irrigation limits soil salinity at the cost of requiring greater volumes of applied irrigation water. 

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3. Quantifying the spatiotemporal variability of nitrate in irrigation water across the Wisconsin Central Sands

   https://doi.org/10.1002/jeq2.20521  

   Campbell, Tracy_A; Masarik, Kevin_C; Heineman, Emily_Marrs; Kucharik, Christopher_J (November 2023, Journal of Environmental Quality)

   Abstract The Wisconsin Central Sands is home to large scale vegetable production on sandy soils and managed with frequent irrigation, fertigation, and widespread nitrogen fertilizer application, all of which make the region highly susceptible to nitrate loss to groundwater. While the groundwater is used as the primary source of drinking water for many communities and rural residences across the region, it is also used for irrigation. Considering the high levels of nitrate found in the groundwater, it has been proposed that growers more accurately account for the nitrate in their irrigation water as part of nitrogen management plans. Our objectives were to 1) determine the magnitude of nitrate in irrigation water, 2) quantify the spatiotemporal variability of nitrate, and 3) determine key predictors of nitrate concentration in the region. We sampled irrigation water from 38 fields across six farms from 2018 to 2020. Across the 3 years of our study, nitrate concentration varied more across space than time. On average, our samples were tested at 19.0 mg L⁻¹nitrate‐nitrogen, or nearly two times the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) threshold for safe drinking water, equivalent to 48.1 kg ha⁻¹of applied nitrate‐nitrogen with 25.4 cm (or 10 in.) of irrigation. To better understand the spatiotemporal variability in nitrate levels, week of sampling, year, well depth, well casing, and nitrogen application rate were analyzed for their role as predictor variables. Based on our linear mixed effects model, nitrogen application rate was the greatest predictor of the nitrate concentration of irrigation water (p < 0.05). 

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4. Supercritical Fluid Nanospray Mass Spectrometry

   https://doi.org/10.1021/jasms.2c00134  

   Mostafa, Mahmoud Elhusseiny; Grinias, James P.; Edwards, James L. (September 2022, Journal of the American Society for Mass Spectrometry)

   Supercritical fluids are typically electrosprayed using an organic solvent makeup flow to facilitate continuous electrical connection and enhancement of electrospray stability. This results in sample dilution, loss in sensitivity, and potential phase separation. Premixing the supercritical fluid with organic solvent has shown substantial benefits to electrospray efficiency and increased analyte charge state. Presented here is a nanospray mass spectrometry system for supercritical fluids (nSF-MS). This split flow system used small i.d. capillaries, heated interface, inline frit, and submicron emitter tips to electrospray quaternary alkyl amines solvated in supercritical CO2 with a 10% methanol modifier. Analyte signal response was evaluated as a function of total system flow rate (0.5–1.5 mL/min) that is split to nanospray a supercritical fluid with linear flow rates between 0.07 and 0.42 cm/sec and pressure ranges (15–25 MPa). The nSF system showed mass-sensitive detection based on increased signal intensity for increasing capillary i.d. and analyte injection volume. These effects indicate efficient solvent evaporation for the analysis of quaternary amines. Carrier additives generally decreased signal intensity. Comparison of the nSF-MS system to the conventional SF makeup flow ESI showed 10-fold signal intensity enhancement across all the capillary i.d.s. The nSF-MS system likely achieves rapid solvent evaporation of the SF at the emitter point. The developed system combined the benefits of the nanoemitters, sCO2, and the low modifier percentage which gave rise to enhancement in MS detection sensitivity. 

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5. NanoSF-MS

   Mahmoud Elhusseiny Mostafa, James P. (September 2022, Journal of the American Society for Mass Spectrometry)

   Supercritical fluids are typically electrosprayed using an organic solvent makeup flow to facilitate continuous electrical connection and enhancement of electrospray stability. This results in sample dilution, loss in sensitivity, and potential phase separation. Premixing the supercritical fluid with organic solvent has shown substantial benefits to electrospray efficiency and increased analyte charge state. Presented here is a nanospray mass spectrometry system for supercritical fluids (nSF-MS). This split flow system used small i.d. capillaries, heated interface, inline frit, and submicron emitter tips to electrospray quaternary alkyl amines solvated in supercritical CO2 with a 10% methanol modifier. Analyte signal response was evaluated as a function of total system flow rate (0.5–1.5 mL/min) that is split to nanospray a supercritical fluid with linear flow rates between 0.07 and 0.42 cm/sec and pressure ranges (15–25 MPa). The nSF system showed mass-sensitive detection based on increased signal intensity for increasing capillary i.d. and analyte injection volume. These effects indicate efficient solvent evaporation for the analysis of quaternary amines. Carrier additives generally decreased signal intensity. Comparison of the nSF-MS system to the conventional SF makeup flow ESI showed 10-fold signal intensity enhancement across all the capillary i.d.s. The nSF-MS system likely achieves rapid solvent evaporation of the SF at the emitter point. The developed system combined the benefits of the nanoemitters, sCO2, and the low modifier percentage which gave rise to enhancement in MS detection sensitivity. 

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