**3.3 Periodic maintenance**

At least once every 2 weeks, the following maintenance procedure is mandatory:


In most situations, irrigation equipment malfunctions develop dynamically, leading to increasing expenditures for its solutions; thus, early detection of operational issues not only prevents negative impacts on crop yield and quality, but also in repairing costs. Comparing data on emitter discharge, end of lateral pressure, pressure at main valves, and water flow after filters, registered at least weekly, has proven to be an excellent method for early detection of irrigation equipment deficiencies.

Many irrigation systems are provided with operational registering options; however, the systematic analysis of this information is seldom included in the routine activities of field decision-making personnel. Available technologies enable the use of automatic cellphone alarms, triggered when the system operation deviates from specific preset discharge or pressure parameters. Data on actual irrigation system performance are seldom considered as a valuable crop production input; thus, a major educational effort is due to fully make use of these system capabilities, at a very low cost and in just a few training hours.
