Crop transpiration is directly related to its production. Plant transpiration varies along the crop cycle and in most part of this cycle is the dominant component in evapotranspiration. There are several well-established techniques to estimate these components individually. Currently, the eddy covariance technique is widely used for measurements of evapotranspiration. However, this technique is unable to identify the flow of water between the surface and the atmosphere has its origin by evaporation from soil or plant transpiration. A new methodology based on the efficiency of water use by the plant is being used successfully. This technique determines how much water is transpired to each carbon molecule attached to the plant. This efficiency ratio is obtained by the difference of external and internal concentration on stomatal cavity of CO2 and H2O. In practice, external concentration of carbon and water is obtained from the infra-red gas analyzers used to obtain data in eddy covariance technique. In this work, the evapotranspiration for a maize crop in southern Brazil is partitioned and compared to the surface model AGRO-IBIS. Results show that the maximum development of the plant transpiration is approximately 70% of evapotranspiration.
PARTIÇÃO DA EVAPOTRANSPIRAÇÃO PARA UMA CULTURA DE MILHO