scholarly journals An Empirical Approach for Detecting Crop Water Stress Using Multispectral Airborne Sensors

1997 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 9-16 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas R. Clarke

Irrigation scheduling can be improved by directly monitoring plant water status rather than depending solely on soil water content measurements or modeled evapotranspiration estimates. Plants receiving sufficient water through their roots have cooler leaves than those that are water stressed, leading to the development of the crop water stress index, which uses hand-held infrared thermometers as tools for scheduling irrigations. However, substantial error can occur in partial canopies when a downward-pointing infrared thermometer measures leaf temperature and the temperature of exposed, hot soil. To overcome this weakness, red and near-infrared images were combined mathematically as a vegetation index, which was used to provide a crop-specific measure of vegetative cover. Coupling the vegetation index with the paired radiant surface temperature from a thermal image, a trapezoidal two-dimensional index was empirically derived capable of detecting water stress even with a low percentage of canopy cover. Images acquired with airborne sensors over subsurface drip-irrigated muskmelon (Cucumis melo L.) fields demonstrated the method's ability to detect areas with clogged emitters, insufficient irrigation rate, and system water leaks. Although the procedure needs to be automated for faster image processing, the approach is an advance in irrigation scheduling and water stress detection technology.

2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (21) ◽  
pp. 2519 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jiandong Tang ◽  
Wenting Han ◽  
Liyuan Zhang

As the key principle of precision farming, variation of actual crop evapotranspiration (ET) within the field serves as the basis for crop management. Although the estimation of evapotranspiration has achieved great progress through the combination of different remote sensing data and the FAO-56 crop coefficient (Kc) method, lack of the accurate crop water stress coefficient (Ks) at different space–time scales still hinder its operational application to farmer practices. This work aims to explore the potential of multispectral images taken from unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) for estimating the temporal and spatial variability of Ks under the water stress condition and mapping the variability of field maize ET combined with the FAO-56 Kc model. To search for an optimal estimation method, the performance of several models was compared including models based on Ks either derived from the crop water stress index (CWSI) or calculated by the canopy temperature ratio (Tc ratio), and combined with the basal crop coefficient (Kcb) based on the normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI). Compared with the Ks derived from the Tc ratio, the CWSI-based Ks responded well to water stress and had strong applicability and convenience. The results of the comparison show that ET derived from the Ks-CWSI had a higher correlation with the modified FAO-56 method, with an R2 = 0.81, root mean square error (RMSE) = 0.95 mm/d, and d = 0.94. In contrast, ET derived from the Ks-Tc ratio had a relatively lower correlation with an R2 = 0.68 and RMSE = 1.25 mm/d. To obtain the evapotranspiration status of the whole maize field and formulate reasonable irrigation schedules, the CWSI obtained by a handheld infrared thermometer was inverted by the renormalized difference vegetation index (RDVI) and the transformed chlorophyll absorption in reflectance index (TCARI). Then, the whole map of Ks can be derived from the VIs by the relationship between CWSI and Ks and can be taken as the basic input for ET estimation at the field scale. The final ET results based on multispectral UAV interpolation measurements can well reflect the crop ET status under different irrigation levels, and greatly help to improve irrigation scheduling through more precise management of deficit irrigation.


Agriculture ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (11) ◽  
pp. 492
Author(s):  
Krista C. Shellie ◽  
Bradley A. King

Precision irrigation of wine grape is hindered by the lack of an automated method for monitoring vine water status. The objectives of this study were to: Validate an automated model for remote calculation of a daily crop water stress index (CWSI) for the wine grape (Vitis vinifera L.) cultivar Malbec and evaluate its suitability for use in irrigation scheduling. Vines were supplied weekly with different percentages of evapotranspiration-based estimated water demand (ETc) over four growing seasons. In the fifth growing season, different daily CWSI threshold values were used to trigger an irrigation event that supplied 28 mm of water. All three indicators of vine water status (CWSI, midday leaf water potential (Ψlmd), and juice carbon isotope ratio (δ13C)) detected an increase in stress severity as the irrigation amount decreased. When the irrigation amount decreased from 100% to 50% ETc, 70% to 35% ETc, or the daily CWSI threshold value increased from 0.4 to 0.6, berry fresh weight and juice titratable acidity decreased, juice δ13C increased, the weekly CWSI increased, and Ψlmd decreased. Under the semi-arid conditions of this study, utilizing a daily CWSI threshold for irrigation scheduling reduced the irrigation amount without compromising the yield or changes in berry composition and remotely provided automated decision support for managing water stress severity in grapevine.


HortScience ◽  
1995 ◽  
Vol 30 (4) ◽  
pp. 905D-905
Author(s):  
Thomas R. Clarke ◽  
M. Susan Moran

Water application efficiency can be improved by directly monitoring plant water status rather than depending on soil moisture measurements or modeled ET estimates. Plants receiving sufficient water through their roots have cooler leaves than those that are water-stressed, leading to the development of the Crop Water Stress Index based on hand-held infrared thermometry. Substantial error can occur in partial canopies, however, as exposed hot soil contributes to deceptively warm temperature readings. Mathematically comparing red and near-infrared reflectances provides a measure of vegetative cover, and this information was combined with thermal radiance to give a two-dimensional index capable of detecting water stress even with a low percentage of canopy cover. Thermal, red, and near-infrared images acquired over subsurface drip-irrigated cantaloupe fields demonstrated the method's ability to detect areas with clogged emitters, insufficient irrigation rate, and system water leaks.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Angela Morales Santos ◽  
Reinhard Nolz

<p>Sustainable irrigation water management is expected to accurately meet crop water requirements in order to avoid stress and, consequently, yield reduction, and at the same time avoid losses of water and nutrients due to deep percolation and leaching. Sensors to monitor soil water status and plant water status (in terms of canopy temperature) can help planning irrigation with respect to time and amounts accordingly. The presented study aimed at quantifying and comparing crop water stress of soybeans irrigated by means of different irrigation systems under subhumid conditions.</p><p>The study site was located in Obersiebenbrunn, Lower Austria, about 30 km east of Vienna. The region is characterized by a mean temperature of 10.5°C with increasing trend due to climate change and mean annual precipitation of 550 mm. The investigations covered the vegetation period of soybean in 2018, from planting in April to harvest in September. Measurement data included precipitation, air temperature, relative humidity and wind velocity. The experimental field of 120x120 m<sup>2</sup> has been divided into four sub-areas: a plot of 14x120 m<sup>2</sup> with drip irrigation (DI), 14x120 m<sup>2</sup> without irrigation (NI), 36x120 m<sup>2</sup> with sprinkler irrigation (SI), and 56x120 m<sup>2</sup> irrigated with a hose reel boom with nozzles (BI). A total of 128, 187 and 114 mm of water were applied in three irrigation events in the plots DI, SI and BI, respectively. Soil water content was monitored in 10 cm depth (HydraProbe, Stevens Water) and matric potential was monitored in 20, 40 and 60 cm depth (Watermark, Irrometer). Canopy temperature was measured every 15 minutes using infrared thermometers (IRT; SI-411, Apogee Instruments). The IRTs were installed with an inclination of 45° at 1.8 m height above ground. Canopy temperature-based water stress indices for irrigation scheduling have been successfully applied in arid environments, but their use is limited in humid areas due to low vapor pressure deficit (VPD). To quantify stress in our study, the Crop Water Stress Index (CWSI) was calculated for each plot and compared to the index resulting from the Degrees Above Canopy Threshold (DACT) method. Unlike the CWSI, the DACT method does not consider VPD to provide a stress index nor requires clear sky conditions. The purpose of the comparison was to revise an alternative method to the CWSI that can be applied in a humid environment.</p><p>CWSI behaved similar for the four sub-areas. As expected, CWSI ≥ 1 during dry periods (representing severe stress) and it decreased considerably after precipitation or irrigation (representing no stress). The plot with overall lower stress was BI, producing the highest yield of the four plots. Results show that DACT may be a more suitable index since all it requires is canopy temperature values and has strong relationship with soil water measurements. Nevertheless, attention must be paid when defining canopy temperature thresholds. Further investigations include the development and test of a decision support system for irrigation scheduling combining both, plant-based and soil water status indicators for water use efficiency analysis.</p>


2020 ◽  
pp. 1-13
Author(s):  
Christos Vamvakoulas ◽  
Ioannis Argyrokastritis ◽  
Panayiota Papastylianou ◽  
Yolanda Papatheohari ◽  
Stavros Alexandris

A two-year field experiment was conducted to determine the effect of water stress, including Crop Water Stress Index (CWSI), on seed, protein and oil yields, for two hybrids of drip-irrigated soybean in Central Greece. The experiment was set up as a split plot design with four replicates, five main plots (irrigation treatments) and two sub-plots (soybean hybrids, ‘PR91M10’ and ‘PR92B63’). Irrigation was applied to provide 100, 75, 50 and 25% of the crop evapotranspiration needs and 0% non-irrigated. Biomass weight, seed yield, oil and protein concentration were measured after harvest. To compute CWSI, lower and upper baselines were developed based on the canopy temperature measurements of I100 and I0 treatments, respectively. Deficit irrigation had a significant effect on biomass, seed, protein and oil yields. Hybrid PR92B63 was more responsive to irrigation and showed higher biomass, seed protein and oil yields, while the more sensitive hybrid PR91M10 had the ability to maintain productivity with increasing degrees of water stress. The rain-fed treatments significantly reduced biomass production and seed yield compared with the fully-irrigated ones. The highest and the lowest protein and oil yields were obtained in the I100 and I0 treatments respectively in both years and cultivars. Statistically significant exponential relationships were determined between CWSI and biomass, seed, protein and oil yields. Generally, CWSI could be used to measure crop water status and to improve irrigation scheduling of the crop and 0.10 for PR92B63 and 0.19 for PR91M10 could be offered as threshold values under the climatic conditions of the region.


2014 ◽  
Vol 15 (3) ◽  
pp. 273-289 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ronit Rud ◽  
Y. Cohen ◽  
V. Alchanatis ◽  
A. Levi ◽  
R. Brikman ◽  
...  

2016 ◽  
Vol 17 (2) ◽  
pp. 571-578 ◽  
Author(s):  
Omid Bahmani ◽  
Ali Akbar Sabziparvar ◽  
Rezvan Khosravi

This study was carried out to evaluate the use of the crop water stress index (CWSI) for irrigation scheduling of sugar beet for two years under the semi arid climate of Iran. Statistical relationships between CWSI and yield, quality parameters and irrigation water use efficiency (IWUE) were investigated. Irrigations were scheduled based on 100 (I100), 85 (I85), 70 (I50) and 0% (I0) of plant water requirement. CWSI values were calculated from the measurements of canopy temperatures by infrared thermometer, air temperatures and vapor pressure deficit values for all the irrigated treatments. The highest IWUE was found in I70 with 9.16 and 1.66 kg m−3 for the root and sugar yield, respectively, in 2013. A non-water stressed baseline (lower line) equation for sugar beet was measured from full irrigated plots as (Tc − Ta)ll = −0.832VPD + 2.1811; R2 = 0.6508. There was a high determination coefficient between CWSI with the root and sugar yield and IWUE. The CWSI could be used to determine the irrigation time of sugar beet, and 0.3 could be offered as a threshold value. Results indicated that the CWSI can be used to evaluate crop water stress and improve irrigation scheduling for sugar beet under semiarid conditions.


2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (7) ◽  
pp. 757 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cristina Romero-Trigueros ◽  
José María Bayona Gambín ◽  
Pedro Antonio Nortes Tortosa ◽  
Juan José Alarcón Cabañero ◽  
Emilio Nicolás Nicolás

Water is not always accessible for agriculture due to its scarcity. In order to successfully develop irrigation strategies that optimize water productivity characterization of the plant, the water status is necessary. We assessed the suitability of thermal indicators by infrared thermometry (IRT) to determine the water status of grapefruit in a commercial orchard with long term irrigation using saline reclaimed water (RW) and regulated deficit irrigation (RDI) in Southeastern Spain. The results showed that Tc-Ta differences were positive in a wide range of vapor pressure deficits (VPD), and the major Tc-Ta were found at 10.00 GMT, before and after the highest daily values of VPD and solar radiation, respectively, were reached. In addition, we evaluated the relationships between Tc-Ta and VPD to establish the Non-Water Stressed Baselines (NWSBs), which are necessary to accurately calculate the crop water stress index (CWSI). Two important findings were found, which include i) the best significant correlations (p < 0.005) found at 10.00 GMT and their slopes were positive, and ii) NWSBs showed a marked hourly and seasonal variation. The hourly shift was mainly explained by the variation in solar radiation since both the NWSB-slope and the NWSB-intercept were significantly correlated with a zenith solar angle (θZ) (p < 0.005). The intercept was greater when θZ was close to 0 (at midday) and the slope displayed a marked hysteresis throughout the day, increasing in the morning and decreasing in the afternoon. The NWSBs determination, according to the season improved most of their correlation coefficients. In addition, the relationship significance of Tc-Ta versus VPD was higher in the period where the intercept and Tc-Ta were low. CWSI was the thermal indicator that showed the highest level of agreement with the stem water potential of the different treatments even though Tc and Tc-Ta were also significantly correlated. We highlight the suitability of thermal indicators measured by IRT to determine the water status of grapefruits under saline (RW) and water stress (RDI) conditions.


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