Dr. Hernaude Agossou
Agronomist Engineer, Natural Resources Management
Irrigation and rural engineering, Inland-valleys management, Crop production
doctoral work
Prof. Dr.-Ing. Janos Bogardi
Prof. Dr. Mathias Becker
Dr. Bernhard Tischbein
2019
2018
2017
2012
and Downloads
- Benin
Research overview Drip irrigation is the most promising approach to raise irrigation efficiency and thus improve productivity of growing crops. But in West-Africa as in many developing regions in the world, the lack of financial resources for establishing, operating and maintaining drip systems is the main reason for their non-adoption by smallholder farmers. A promising attempt to step out of this dilemma is an innovative bamboo-drip system that would have the advantages of conventional plastic-drip systems, but be less costly. This research was initiated to support that option, and aimed to assess the performance of the bamboo system in terms of hydraulics, uniformity, yield and water productivity, and to optimize its lay-out for minimum soil-water loss through deep percolation and maximum fresh yield. Laboratory and field tests were carried out in Benin on this system which showed good and similar hydraulics and uniformity performance as conventional plastic-drip systems under suitable pressure conditions. Under field conditions, the bamboo system reached yields in the range of conventional plastic-drip and watering can systems; its water productivity was found similar to that of the plastic-drip system and nearly twice that of the can system. Non-linear constraint optimization was used to integrate agronomic and hydrologic behaviours of the bamboo system, and identified 34 cm as best spacing, i.e. where the best deep percolation -fresh yield compromise is observed on sandy loam soil.
Irrigation and rural engineering, Inland-valleys management, Crop production
Agronomist Engineer, Natural Resources Management
Agronomy, Natural resources management, Irrigation and water resources management, Postharvest conservation of fruits and vegetables
BMZ via DAAD, Stiftung Fiat Panis
doctoral work
Prof. Dr.-Ing. Janos Bogardi
Prof. Dr. Mathias Becker
Dr. Bernhard Tischbein
