The understanding of simultaneous water and solute transport from a punctual source allow, in fertigation, to develop efficient strategies, important in design, operation and handling of drip irrigation systems. Thus, the present work has as objective to present a mathematical model validation applied to simulate the simultaneous water and potassium dynamic under drip irrigation. The model development was based on the numeric resolution of partial differential equations of second order from point sources under transient flow of water and solute. The validation experiment was done at ESALQ/USP/Brazil. The soil used was a Red Latosol, sandy texture, "Sertãozinho" series, where a potassium chloride was applied in a 500 mg L-1 concentration of K, with a 3 L h-1flow, for 2 h. The sampling times were 24; 48 and 72 hr after the irrigation beginning. It was observed that there was a good adjustment in the distribution of water and potassium values in the bulb when compared the data simulated by the model and experimentally obtained. The potassium distribution was limited to the most internal bulb layers, showing the ion displacement was delayed due soil matrix interactions.
simulation; potassium transport; wet bulb
