Performance assessment of the TORO Company Neptune PC AS dripline

In order to design an efficient micro-irrigation system, a monitoring approach allowing quantification of the main variables affecting the level of uniformity should be pursued. In the present work, we assess the performances of a commercial dripline, the product ‘Neptune PC AS’, furnished by TORO Company, employing an ad hoc built experimental benchmark, in doing so, defining the dripline’s acceptable working conditions. Neptune PC AS has been tested at different operating pressure heads (range 1.5-3.5 bar), and its performances have been evaluated employing a series of metrics (the emitter technological variation coefficient, the emitter uniformity, and the application efficiency). The obtained results show that Neptune PC AS is characterised by a strong pressure- compensating effect on the emitters and by very good/excellent performances for all the investigated operating pressure heads. Moreover, Neptune PC AS is characterised by little differences between the maximum and the minimum of the emitter flow rate in the case of operating pressure heads equal to 1.5 bar and 2.0 bar, while such differences tend to increase for higher operating pressures.