Keywords:  irrigation mode, irrigation rate, irrigation costs, cost of crop production, additional net income

// Мелиорация.— 2023. – №2(104) – С 5–11

It is established that economically justified irrigation rate is directly proportional to productive soil moisture content at saturation to the lowest moisture capacity, and it rises with the increase of irrigation costs and decreases at the increase of difference between market value of irrigated crop and its cost. Specific feature of the ecological-economic optimization task is to take into account technological and ecological limitations of irrigation regime. Besides additional net income received from irrigation, the value of optimal irrigation rate should be higher than the technological minimum connected with the total time spent on the maintenance of irrigation system and on idle relocation of irrigation equipment in the process of watering and should not exceed the environmentally acceptable limit, excluding irrigation water losses due to surface and subsurface runoff. Compliance with these conditions allows to make a choice between drip irrigation or sprinkling as the methods of crop irrigation.