Application Case of Drip Irrigation Head Filtration System in Xinjiang Cotton Fields

Xinjiang is a major cotton producing area in China, where drip irrigation technology has been widely promoted. However, well water is mostly used for irrigation in Xinjiang cotton fields, and the well water in some areas has high sediment content, leading to frequent clogging of drip tapes, which seriously affects the service life of drip irrigation systems and cotton yield. In this case, the project party adopted a two-stage filtration scheme of centrifugal filter + automatic backwashing disc filtration system at the cotton drip irrigation head. The first-stage centrifugal filter uses centrifugal force to remove sand particles with large specific gravity in water, reducing the filtration burden of downstream equipment; the second-stage automatic backwashing disc filtration system is responsible for fine filtration to ensure the water quality at the drip irrigation end. The system is equipped with pressure difference sensing automatic backwashing control, which eliminates the need for frequent manual cleaning of filter elements and greatly reduces maintenance workload. After the system was put into operation, the clogging rate of drip tapes decreased significantly, the system failure shutdown time was obviously reduced, cotton grew evenly, and the water and fertilizer utilization efficiency improved. The project practice shows that rationally configuring a multi-stage filtration system according to the characteristics of water sources is the key to ensuring the long-term stable operation of drip irrigation projects in arid areas of Xinjiang.