scholarly journals Assessment of a Smartphone Application for Real-Time Irrigation Scheduling in Mediterranean Environments

Water ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 252 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marie Abi Saab ◽  
Ihab Jomaa ◽  
Sleiman Skaf ◽  
Salim Fahed ◽  
Mladen Todorovic

The suitability of cloud-based irrigation technologies remains questionable due to limited information on their evaluation in the field. This study focussed on the on-field assessment of a smartphone irrigation scheduling tool—Bluleaf®—with respect to traditional water application practices. Bluleaf® uses weather, crop, soil, and irrigation system data to support a farmer’s decision on the timing and amounts of irrigation. The smartphone application was tested in Bekaa Valley, Lebanon, on durum wheat, a strategic Mediterranean crop, during the 2017 and 2018 growing seasons. The simulation results on soil water balance were in “acceptable to very good” agreement with the measured soil moisture values, with a root mean square error (RMSE) between 15.1 and 26.6 mm and a modelling efficiency (NSE) that ranged from 0.77 to 0.92. The appropriateness of the adopted smartphone irrigation scheduling was confirmed also by leaf water potential measurements and the Crop Water Stress Index (CWSI). A water saving of more than 1000 m3/ha (25.7%) was observed with Bluleaf® with respect to traditional irrigation scheduling. Therefore, new technologies could bring about substantial benefits to farmers and support water saving efforts in the Mediterranean region.

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.


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.


2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Afshin Khorsand ◽  
Vahid Rezaverdinejad ◽  
Hossein Asgarzadeh ◽  
Abolfazl Majnooni-Heris ◽  
Amir Rahimi ◽  
...  

AbstractMeasurement of plant and soil indices as well as their combinations are generally used for irrigation scheduling and water stress management of crops and horticulture. Rapid and accurate determination of irrigation time is one of the most important issues of sustainable water management in order to prevent plant water stress. The objectives of this study are to develop baselines and provide irrigation scheduling relationships during different stages of black gram growth, determine the critical limits of plant and soil indices, and also determine the relationships between plant physiology and soil indices. This study was conducted in a randomized complete block design at the four irrigation levels 50 (I1), 75 (I2), 100 (I3 or non-stress treatment) and 125 (I4) percent of crop’s water requirement with three replications in Urmia region in Iran in order to irrigation scheduling of black gram using indices such as canopy temperature (Tc), crop water stress index (CWSI), relative water content (RWC), leaf water potential (LWP), soil water (SW) and penetration resistance (Q) of soil under one-row drip irrigation. The plant irrigation scheduling was performed by using the experimental crop water stress index (CWSI) method. The upper and lower baseline equations as well as CWSI were calculated for the three treatments of I1, I2 and I3 during the plant growth period. Using the extracted baselines, the mean CWSI values for the three treatments of I1, I2 and I3 were calculated to be 0.37, 0.23 and 0.15, respectively, during the growth season. Finally, using CWSI, the necessary equations were provided to determine the irrigation schedule for the four growing stages of black gram, i.e. floral induction-flowering, pod formation, seed and pod filling and physiological maturity, as (Tc − Ta)c = 1.9498 − 0.1579(AVPD), (Tc − Ta)c = 4.4395 − 0.1585(AVPD), (Tc − Ta)c = 2.4676 − 0.0578(AVPD) and (Tc − Ta)c = 5.7532 − 0.1462(AVPD), respectively. In this study, soil and crop indices, which were measured simultaneously at maximum stress time, were used as a complementary index to remove CWSI constraints. It should be noted that in Urmia, the critical difference between the canopy temperature and air temperature (Tc − Ta), soil penetration resistance (Q), soil water (SW) and relative water content (RWC) for the whole growth period of black gram were − 0.036 °C, 10.43 MPa and 0.14 cm3 cm−3 and 0.76, respectively. Ideal point error (IPE) was also used to estimate RWC, (Tc − Ta) and LWP as well as to select the best regression model. According to the results, black gram would reduce its RWC less through reducing its transpiration and water management. Therefore, it can be used as a low-water-consuming crop. Furthermore, in light of available facilities, the farmer can use the regression equations between the obtained soil and plant indices and the critical boundaries for the irrigation scheduling of the field.


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.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document