Management of water resources for irrigation purposes by farms - year 2018

PSR 2014-2020 – Tuscany Region Tender 4.1.4 "Management of water resources for irrigation purposes by farms" - year 2018 BENEFICIARY: Vivai Piante Gieffe Simple Agricultural Society ARTEA CUP PROJECT: 827779
The intervention concerns the corporate body located in Serravalle Pistoiese, in the Casalguidi locality, identified in the land register of the aforementioned municipality on map sheet 30 by parcels 4p-7-8p-119p-120-247-249-250-251-253. The area actually irrigated in the company body subject to intervention amounts to approximately 34,000 square meters.
The irrigation system is fed by an irrigation basin with a capacity of approximately 20,000 cubic meters (located on parcels 4 and 249), which collects the rainwater that flows from the company grounds above. There is also a drainage system that converges in a recovery well (located on parcel 253).
The project envisages allocating all the rainwater intercepted by the basin and otherwise destined for dispersion to irrigation, as well as that recovered from the distribution systems, which are estimated to be equal to at least 40-50% of the volumes pumped from the lake. Both the rainwater from the basin and that recovered cannot be reused as they are, as they contain suspended solid impurities which could block the pipes. They are then sent to an accumulation basin (located on parcel 253) from which, after decantation, they pass to the pumping station, where they are filtered and corrected (PH and salinity). Furthermore, before being sent to the distribution plants, they are mixed with liquid fertiliser. The objective of the project is to improve the efficiency of the management of the water resource used for irrigation purposes. To achieve the objective, the types of interventions described in detail below were pursued.
Type 1) – improvement of the collection system: it includes the modeling of the reservoir (to increase its retention capacity), including the installation of new pipes for collecting the upstream rainwater and making the dock with adequate fencing. The expected water saving from the intervention is more than about 15% compared to the initial situation.
Type 2) – company wastewater recovery and treatment: includes the recovery of post-irrigation water through drainage and its conveyance to a recovery well. This is followed by the filtration and correction treatment, which, together with fertilization, allows their reuse in addition to rainwater.
Type 3) – irrigation savings: includes new low-consumption distribution systems.
More precisely, the following have been installed: new sprinkler system with multi-jet rotary sprinklers to replace hammer sprinklers on 8,051 m2: expected irrigation savings of around 19%; new mixed drip and rain system with multi-jet rotary sprinklers to replace hammer sprinklers on 9,691 m2: expected irrigation savings of approximately 29%; new drip system to replace the sprinkler system on approximately 715 square meters: expected irrigation savings of approximately 47%.
Type 4) – installation of measurement, control and automation systems: they include the electronic control of fertigation and PH, the management of the solenoid valves through electronic programmers, the control of the operating pressures and the measurement of the pumped water and distributed, as well as alarms on any anomalies that can be managed via telephone.