Ashgabat, October 23, 2019: A joint project of the UN Development Program (UNDP) and the State Committee of Water Economy of Turkmenistan held a workshop for 28 agricultural and water specialists, land users - agricultural producers in order to familiarize them with the main results of research and production activities on improvement of degraded and salinized lands using modern irrigation technologies and agricultural work. The seminar also addressed issues of assessment and monitoring of the ameliorative condition of irrigated lands with use of special control and measuring equipment installed in the site fields.

The project “Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy for Sustainable Water Management in Turkmenistan”, funded by the Global Environment Facility, has been conducting a field research on a 145 ha site in Geokdepe for the second year. A land plot of 6.2 ha was allocated on the research field to study the effectiveness of crop cultivation using water-saving irrigation technologies.

“To conduct research work on the pilot site, we created experimental fields, equipped with drip, sprinkling and improved furrow irrigation systems, which are equipped with water metering devices, water-regulating and soil moisture measuring equipment. In addition, an automatic meteorological station has been installed, which allows us to determine the temperature and humidity of the air, the intensity of solar radiation, the direction and speed of the wind, the amount of precipitation and other indicators” - says Chary Taganov, project specialist.

Scientists and post-graduate students from the Turkmen Agricultural University, and “Turkmensuvylymtaslama” Water Design Institute are conducting research on the effectiveness of cultivating the main crops of Turkmenistan, such as cotton, winter wheat, alfalfa, corn, vegetables and melons, combating soil degradation and increasing its fertility with drip irrigation, artificial sprinkling and improved furrow irrigation.

A comparative analysis of the results obtained in field experiments shows a number of benefits and high efficiency of cotton cultivation using drip irrigation method. Firstly, this is the minimum cost of mechanized and manual labor, not only during irrigation, but also during agricultural works. Secondly, the dosed supply of irrigation water directly to the plant’s vital area left weeds in the aisles without moisture, which effectively prevented their growth and development. Thirdly, the cotton yield under drip irrigation amounted to about 60 kg / ha, which is about 3 times more if compared with traditional furrow irrigation, and the cost of irrigation water per unit of production decreased about 6.8 times.

Good results were also obtained with drip irrigation of watermelons, the yield of which is higher than that of traditional irrigation by an average of 1.8 times, while the cost of irrigation water per unit of production is about 2 times less.

Artificial sprinkling irrigation showed good results during the cultivation of continuous crops, such as winter wheat and alfalfa. So, the average yield in the fields with winter wheat was about 27 kg / ha and alfalfa about 130 kg / ha with a decrease in the cost of irrigation water per unit of production for both crops compared with traditional irrigation methods by about 2.0 times. The yield of winter wheat under sprinkling irrigation in some fields of the experimental plot reached to 37 kg / ha.