The effect of soil conditioning polymer application on soil runoff and erosion in agricultural grounds
Highlights
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Polyacrylamide (PAM) is a soil conditioning polymer which was found very efficient on reducing runoff rate and erosion, and improving infiltration performance.
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PAM was never tested in non-irrigated conditions such as dryland farming .
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A crucial disadvantage of PAM is in its high viscosity. spraying a field with PAM using the common methods is inefficient and damaging
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A new technology containing a spinning aspirator disk is being used to spray PAM in micro-drops fractions, which prevents the accumulation of high viscosity material on soil.
Abstract
A common solution on preventing runoff and erosion damages for farmlands due to a continual over-cultivating is the transition to a conserving agricultural methods which concludes Vegetation covering. this is a perpetual increasing trend in global agriculture. However, in some places (such as Israel), a large demand for fodder from the cattle and sheep markets makes those methods unprofitable.
In this project we're testing the use of Polyacrylamide as a soil conditioning tool that would support farmers in their efforts to decrease erosion and runoff rates in their fields.
The polyacrylamide was tested before and found useful as an aggregates conditioning material (...), and effective for soil infiltration capacity acceleration (...) and runoff decreasing(....). A new technology, based on a thin, fast spinning disk (micro group, UK) brakes the fluid into a micro-scale drops that sprayed equally upon soil surface.
Initial test in an onion field showed a significant effect on aggregates stability after a 150 mm of rain.
Methods
Today, We're working on a small scale application, using a hand sprayer carriage (a) to provide PAM on soil samples (3 different soil types, different PAM concentration). the samples are placed afterwords in a rain-simulator (b).
By collecting the data of infiltration, runoff and erosion, we're getting a first conception of implications and the level of efficiency.
After processing the data from the rain-simulator, we intend to generate a large-scale field experiment which will help us determine how this new technology of PAM spraying can be used as a soil conditioning method in non-irrigated conditions.
