DRIP irrigation technology from Israel is seen as a possible solution for drought-hit farmers, as it could to increase water-usage efficiency to almost 100 per cent.

The idea was floated yesterday at a seminar hosted by the National Science and Technology Development Agency (NSTDA) where agricultural researchers from Israel introduced the fertigation technology – fertilising and watering plants using drip irrigation.

Naftali Lazarovitch – an Israeli scientist from Ben-Gurion University of the Negev’s French Associates Institute for Agriculture and Biotechnology of Drylands – stated that the fertigation technique was a very efficient way to grow almost every kind of plant as it used less water and could increase yields.

He said the technology was developed because Israel’s arid conditions meant conventional farming was impossible in large parts of the country. “So 70 per cent of farmland in Israel uses drip irrigation and the other 30 per cent use sprinklers,” he said.

“By implementing fertigation, the plant can use 95 per cent of the water directly, compared to less than 50 per cent of the water in the conventional way of watering.”

Uri Yermiyahu, a researcher from the Gilat Research Centre, said: “This technique can be implemented on almost every kind of plant and the fertilising via the dripping water allows the plant to use the fertiliser directly. However, the nature of each plant is different, so there has to be an adjustment in the fertigation technique to suit each kind of plant.”

NSTDA’s National Centre for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology technical officer, Wisara Chaisalee, had previously studied Israeli agriculture techniques. Wisara said the efficient use of water in Israeli farming turned deserts into food baskets and Thai farmers could learn to implement those techniques.

“This is another good choice for Thai farmers planting their crops during the drought, as it uses less water and the technology is not too expensive or too complex for ordinary farmers,” Wisara said.

“However, there are some limitations of this planting method, as it is too costly to adapt to a large field or some terrain, and it has to be adjusted to suit farming in Thailand.”

NSTDA president Thaweesak Koanantakool said in cooperation with Rajamangala University of Technology Lanna, two Israeli experts would lead a field workshop on the fertigation technology in Lampang next week to show Thai academics, students and farmers how it was use it and how it could be adapted to Thailand’s farming environment.