An auto irrigation system for home gardens in Sri Lanka

A subsurface pot irrigation system and a subsurface irrigation system with specially designed clay emitters were designed and tested to investigate the efficiency of the auto-irrigation systems for home gardens crop cultivation. The yield and development of curry chilies cultivated under the designed subsurface irrigation systems were compared with the yield and development of curry chilies under manual irrigation during three seasons; January – April, May - August and September – December. The yield obtained from the crop grown under designed irrigation systems is two times higher than the yield of crop grown under manual irrigation during dry seasons. The use of water under subsurface irrigation system with clay emitters was considerably less when compared with the subsurface pot irrigation. Both designed irrigation systems automatically control the water intake of soil when the soil is wet.