1. Performance of Bubbler Irrigation System as Compared to Drip for Large Size Date Palm Tree Farm Ahmed I. Al-Amoud

2. Water Resources Traditional Water Resources: Non-Renewable Groundwater: 500 cubic Km Renewable Groundwater: 950 million cubic meter Surface Water: 2400 million cubic meter Non-Traditional Resources: Desalination Water: 1billion cubic meter/year Treated Wastewater: 500 million cubic meter/year Drainage Water: 143 million cubic meter/year

3. Water for Different Sectors

4. Water Resources for Agriculture

5. Total Cultivated Area

6. Agriculture Water Demand

7. Groundwater decline in different region of Kingdom (1993-2003)

8. Irrigation Systems In The Kingdom

9. Irrigation system Distribution

10. Percentage Areas Irrigation by Different Systems

11. Drip Irrigation Development

12. Date Palm Trees

13. Importance and Production  International Production* Production (Mt)Area Harvested (Ha)Country 1,100,000140,000United States 995,000150,000Saudi Arabia 880,000170,000Iran 760,00095,000United Arab Emirates 750,00029,000Egypt 650,00075,000Pakistan 450,000100,000Algeria 330,00018,200Sudan 240,00030,000Oman 140,00026,000Libya 6,700,000world

14. National Date Palm Expansion

18. Date Palm Study

23. Objectives Study the following: –Evaluate Existing Bubbler Irrigation Performance. –Compare Performance of Bubbler by Drip Irrigation System.

24. Methods and Materials Location : Gassim Latitude : 26° 45' N Longitude: 43° 45' E Altitude: 649 m

25. Farm: Number of Trees: 200,000 Farm Area: 5466 Ha Number of wells: 26 Average Discharge: 1000 GPM Tree Spacing: 10 m x 10 m Pump Power: 440 hp

26. – Soil: Sandy Clay Loam soil – Variety: Sukkary cultiver – Tree age: 12 years – No. of trees: 6000 (3 block, 3 plots, 3 replicates) – Water regime: 100% of class A pan evaporation Soil, Plant, & Design

27. Background - Annual water requirement:80 m 3 - Method of Irrigation :Bubbler - Average irrigation interval:1-2 days

30. Pressure Compensated Line 4

32. Irrigation System Layout

33. Emitter Layout

39. CONCLUSIONS  Bubbler system show poor performance with 55% to 65% emission uniformity.  As a result of low uniformity trees at 1 st quarter were over irrigated while trees at last quarter were under irrigated.  Drip lines have shown uniform distribution of an average emission uniformity of 97%.  Design of drip irrigation system for large trees like date palms proves to be more efficient.