August 1 2006, 17:59

Five types of drip irrigation system will be demonstrated on AMP Field day in Odesa oblast

The segment of drip irrigation equipment is one of the most quickly growing parts of the market of agricultural inputs. Rather dry climate and lack of water on the major territory of Ukraine stimulate the interest of the producers to this technology. Drip irrigation system let them economize water resources, fertilizers, plant protection assets, which are all limited and quite expensive. The acreages irrigated by drip irrigation systems are extending year by year. To the opinion of the majority market players, the market is far from being saturated; however, the competition is building up each year. One could count on fingers the sellers of drip irrigation systems some years ago; now the number of sellers has grown many-fold.

Drip irrigation system requires substantial initial investments. Valentina Kotsur, the Agronomist of Odesa AMP office recommends the producer should accurately consider all expenses, but not just "be in the fashion" before buying drip irrigation system. As a rule, it is not feasible to buy drip irrigation system for acreage less than 5 ha. At present moment many distributors offer different-cost systems. For example, the price for tube can fluctuate $0.07-0.08/running meter depending from the manufacturer; but the quality is different too. According to the expert's experience, farmers should not take into consideration only the price. If the equipment and materials are chosen from lower price segment, producers can hardly get the expected technical parameters and even bear additional labor and financial expenses during the system utilization. "We want to introduce to the agricultural producers all types of irrigation systems available on market; so we are readily provide the distributors with the opportunity to demonstrate their drip irrigation systems on the demosites established by the Agricultural Marketing Project. This year, like in previous years, the distributors will present their product and talk about the optimal parameters of its utilization", Valentina Kotsur says. This year the Field day in Odesa oblast will be conducted on the basis of SHTELMA private enterprise on the 11th of August in village Mayaki, Belyaevskiy rayon. The producers will see the systems Golden Drip, Ro-Drip, Т-Tape, Mezzerplast, Aqua-TraXX presented by "AMI", "Agrimatco", "Terra LTD", "UkrAgroTechnologies", "Technoservice" companies.