ECO-IRRIGATION: AN EBB AND FLOW SYSTEM FOR LARGE SCALE COMMERCIAL APPLICATIONS From the dawn of civilization until slightly over a century

COMMERCIAL APPLICATIONS From the dawn of civilization until slightly over a century ago, the sole form of irrigation was subsurface. Water was allowed to enter a planted field, and then drained. From Mesopotamia to the Nile Valley to the plains of India, food supplies were irrigated by drainage ditches and natural flooding. Surface water from accumulated rain or snow was the only water source. During the last hundred years, with the advent of deep wells, pumps, and engines, mankind gained the ability to remove vast quantities of aquifer water. This technology has allowed for various types of high-pressure irrigation systems, such as microand spray irrigation. Until the last two decades, the aquifer was generally considered an inexhaustible source, and the use of surface water assumed a secondary role in many areas. Now that worldwide population has exploded and water consumption has dramatically increased, fresh water supplies are becoming very taxed. Because agriculture consumes the majority of the world’s fresh water, it is essential to reconsider any method of conserving water in crop production. The single largest limitation for the application of modern irrigation technology, from a water source point of view, is the fact that most water applied to crops is not utilized by the plant; the excess water either evaporates, runs off into surface water, or slowly leaches back into the aquifer system. This water is unavoidably contaminated by agricultural runoff or non-point-source pollution. Seven years ago, after spending several years in the containerized horticultural nursery business near Orlando, Florida, I was feeling very unhappy with our systems of microjet and overhead spray irrigation. These systems presented so many difficulties with pumps, filters, emitters, and water distribution that I began to explore the possibility