Fertilizer performance evaluation for fertigation and conventional fertilization in basin irrigation with ammonium-sulphate application

In order to analyze and compare the basin irrigation performance among different fertilization methods, ammonium-sulphate was selected as fertilizer to perform basin irrigation experiments with fertigation and conventional fertilization methods. Three kinds of indices for practical basin irrigation, such as nitrogen uniformity, nitrogen efficiency and nitrogen adequacy, were calculated. At the same time, the basin irrigation performance differences with fertigation and conventional fertilization were analyzed. The results showed that the nitrogen uniformity, efficiency and adequacy between fertigation and conventional fertilization had significant differences. The indices' values of fertigation were 14.5, 14.3 and 8.4 percentage point higher than the irrigation conventional fertilization, respectively. For local basin, the nitrogen uniformity between large (6 L/(m?s)) and small (3 L/(m?s)) discharge for fertigation had significant difference, and the former was 4.2 higher than latter, thus the former was more suitable than the latter. For the basin irrigation with conventional fertilization, the nitrogen uniformity, efficiency and adequacy between large and small discharge had significant difference. For global basin, the nitrogen uniformity of small discharge was 5.5 percentage point higher than the large discharge, and nitrogen efficiency and adequacy of small discharge were 5.3 and 3.2 higher than the large discharge, respectively. This research can provide the scientific basis for evaluation and optimization of basin irrigation system with fertilization.