Dear all,

I hope this is the type of announcement this blog section is intended for.

In any case, I would like to present a report on one of the researches I did as part of the STUN project from Eawag-Sandec. The aim of the research was to determine if struvite or calcium-magnesium precipitates would block the emitters of drip irrigation systems in a significant way.

The full report can be found on:

www.eawag.ch/forschung/sandec/gruppen/ew...s/stun/drip/index_EN

To introduce the report, I have copied the abstract below:

Stored human urine can be used as a balanced fertilizer in agriculture.
However there are some challenges related to field application
of urine. Using urine as a liquid fertilizer through drip
irrigation could help overcome some of these challenges. In this
report we describe the results of a field study aimed at testing
two possible ways of combining urine fertilization and drip irrigation.
The main finding is that a system in which the water / urine
mix is allowed to settle in the tank of the irrigation system for
45 minutes does not lead to more work for the farmer in terms
of inspecting and unblocking the emitters in the drip lines than
using only water. A second system, where irrigation with urine
and water was done in sequence, did not function well. The most
likely reason for this problem is a lack of pressure in the system
when pure urine was used.
For situations where a different type of drip irrigation system is
used and for places with hard water (high calcium content) we
recommend further small scale testing before investing in a large
system.

Kind regards

Marijn Zandee