The popular song sings:

“For hot work,
For good deeds
Did a young guy
Walk out to the Donetsk steppe.”
 
However, the song keeps secret what good deeds exactly the young guy did in the steppe, as after dating with young ladies, he had to go to work in the mine. It was not until many decades passed away, on Aug. 29 this year, during the joint Field Day of AMACO and Ekoprod CJSC that it became possible to finally figure out the needs of the Donetsk steppe.

vegetation season: even this year, which has been quite rainy, precipitation has totaled 180-190 mm, while the needs of wheat and sunflower crops are 300 mm, and those of corn – 600 mm. In other words, the needs are three times the volume of moisture nature yields. That is why installing irrigation systems in the Donetsk steppe would be really a good deed. Local agricultural producers realized that long ago. In the Soviet times the crop area under irrigation was intensely enlarged, and it reached 200,000 ha in the early 1990s. However, hard times then came. Irrigation has survived on no about 26,000 ha, but even there the outdated energy-intensive watering facilities, which furthermore consume more water than required by plants, are employed.

That is why the Donetsk oblast does need to renew and modernize the irrigation network, as done on the land of Ekoprod CJSC, for example. Field Day participants had an opportunity to see the WIS (Western Irrigation Systems) circular irrigation system, which AMACO produces, sells and maintains, in action. This system has been used in the Volnovakha rayon for a second season now, working steadily and without failure and proving to be highly efficient.

The peculiarities of irrigation in the Donetsk oblast (in comparison with the Kherson oblast) are that there is no widespread canal network in the miners’ land, as a result of which the local irrigation installations take water from wells. This suggests a conclusion that it is very hard to apply linear (frontal) systems here, while circular systems are comfortable and efficient here.

The system that was demonstrated to Field Day participants is 450 m long. The circle it irrigates covers a surface of some 70 hectares. The system can be characterized as being easy to launch and service, and easy to handle while using. In the climatic conditions of the Donetsk steppe, the Western system can operate 10 months per year, irrigating both vegetating crops and, as need be, soil before sowing. The life time of the installation is 20-25 years.

Experts from most of countries worldwide tend to think that circular installations are more efficient to use than linear ones. However, on the other hand, such network of irrigation canals as in Ukraine does not exist anywhere else in the world. That is why we, Ukrainians, should take account of our own realia.

AMACO’s irrigation systems should make a drastic change to the life of farmers on this droughty land and transform “dark, sun-heated mounds” into “green fields.”

Vitaliy Skotsyk, Doctor of Economics, Director General of AMACO:
“While working in Great Britain some time ago, I myself could not understand at first why irrigational technologies were at all times applied in the country where it rained from May through the end of summer. The answer is as follows: it does not matter how much moisture can be received during the summer period altogether while it matters how much moisture can reach a plant during a definite period of vegetation. Irrigation systems allow regulating that. In the USA, for example, potatoes have been considered the most profitable crop in the last three years, but not a single farmer will resolve to raise it without irrigation. That is why the average fertility rate of potatoes in the USA is 30 tons per hectare without irrigation, and 65-70 tons per hectare with irrigation. To date, we have received preliminary orders for 80 irrigation systems at the ratio of some 50/50, i.e. one half of orders accounts for frontal systems, and the other half – circular systems. Overall, Ukraine needs 15,000-17,000 irrigation installations. One such machine, as we see here, costs about UAH 500,000 including taxes, installation costs and the costs of putting it into operation.
However, this money pays for itself fast: the fertility rate of silage corn in this field is 350 centners per hectare. If not for irrigation, this figure would have been within 100 centners per hectare.”

Mykhailo Palolo, first deputy chairman of the Donetsk Oblast Main Department of Agro-Industrial Development:
“The feature that makes the Donetsk oblast different from other regions is that larch-scale production prevails here. Agricultural companies apply intensive production techniques and energy- and resource-saving technologies, and seek to reduce production costs at the expense of the quality of employed machinery, like AMACO’s machinery that is demonstrated today. The climatic conditions of the Donetsk oblast are characterized by drought, which is why irrigation has been developed here at all times. At present, we seek to renew and modernize it by using up-to-date machinery and technologies. We will need a lot of irrigation systems as we plan to develop livestock farming, we will sow more corn and fodder herbs.
The state helps us do so by compensating us for the cost of the electricity consumed during irrigation or the cost of fuel, if diesel engines are applied during irrigation. When it comes to purchasing imported irrigation machines, farms can take a long-term loan, in which the state will compensate for 1.5 discount rates of the National Bank of Ukraine.”

Ivan Melnyk, director general of Ekoprod CJSC:
“Our enterprise is operating in the Volnovakha, Starobeshiv, Dobropillia and Oleksandrivka rayons, Donetsk oblast. We raise grain crops, and we are also engaged in dairy livestock farming: our herd yields 10 percent of the oblast’s milk output. We have built an up-to-date milking parlor, and the animals themselves are quite a big capital investment. One cow costs now UAH 10,000, and we have 3,000 cows. If a farm is engaged in livestock raising, then it has to solve the fodder problem, and fodder cannot be raised under our conditions without irrigation. In the field where we currently work, we have been applying a Western Irrigation Systems installation for a second year now. This year we have harvested one crop here first, then we have sowed corn; as soon as we harvest it, we will prepare the area, irrigate it and sow winter crops. Irrigation increases fertility indicators by several times. While last year grain corn almost burnt out, yielding no crop, this year, with irrigation applied, it thanked us with a threshing result of 80-100 centners per hectare.”

Source – Farmer, issue No. 10, 2008