Irrigation scenarios for artichokes and dry bean as a result of soil variability on the basis of resistivity mapping in southwest Italy

This work aims at comparing irrigation strategies on the basis of deficit irrigation and soil spatial variability assessed through electrical resistivity mapping (ERM) conducted by an automatic resistivity profiler on-the-go sensor. Profiles chosen along a range of soil electrical resistivity showed different soil properties linked to water holding capacity within a field, with total available water (TAW) values of the coarser-textured zone corresponding to about 50% of TAW in the finertextured zone within the field. Multi-year weather data were obtained on a daily basis and scenarios were developed for climatic demand conditions representing dry average and wet years. The ISAREG water balance and irrigation scheduling model was afterwards applied to the different soil profiles and with different strategies for full and deficit irrigation, to compute water and irrigation requirements as well as related yield impacts of deficit irrigation for artichokes and dry beans. Deficit irrigation allowed calculated water savings up to about 50% for the winter crop and 33% for the summer crop with yield losses lower than 10%. Irrigation requirements within irrigation strategy were 10 to 44% different between profiles, and this indicates that soil visualization techniques such as ERM can be used for the identification of zones for site-specific irrigation management.

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Optimizing Et-Based Irrigation Scheduling for Wheat and Maize with Water Constraints

Transactions of the ASABE ◽

10.13031/trans.12363 ◽

2017 ◽

Vol 60 (6) ◽

pp. 2053-2065 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

Liwang Ma ◽

Zhiming Qi ◽

Yanjun Shen ◽

Liang He ◽

Shouhua Xu ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Grain Yield ◽

Water Use Efficiency ◽

Water Use ◽

Deficit Irrigation ◽

Irrigation Management ◽

Irrigation Scheduling ◽

Weather Data ◽

Growth Stages ◽

Area Index ◽

Use Efficiency

Abstract. Deficit irrigation has been shown to increase crop water use efficiency (WUE) under certain conditions, even though the yield is slightly reduced. In this study, the Root Zone Water Quality Model (RZWQM) was first calibrated with measured data from a large weighing lysimeter from 1998 to 2003 at the Yucheng Experimental Station in the North China Plain for daily evapotranspiration (ET), soil water storage (0-120 cm), leaf area index (LAI), aboveground biomass, and grain yield. The calibrated model was then used to explore crop responses to ET-based irrigation management using weather data from 1958 to 2015 and identify the most suitable ET-based irrigation schedules for the area. Irrigation amount was determined by constraining irrigation to a percentage of potential crop ET (40%, 60%, 80%, and 100% ETc) at the various growth stages of wheat [planting to before winter dormancy (P-D), green up to booting (G-B), booting to flowering (B-F), and flowering to maturity (F-M)] and of maize [planting to silking (P-S) and silking to maturity (S-M)], subject to seasonal water availability limits of 100/50, 200/100, 300/150, and 400/200 mm and no water limit for wheat/maize seasons, respectively. In general, wheat was more responsive to irrigation than maize, while greater influence of weather variation was simulated on maize than on wheat. For wheat with seasonal water limits, the highest average WUE was simulated with the highest targeted ETc levels at both the G-B and B-F stages and lower targeted ETc levels at the P-D and F-M stages. However, the highest average grain yield was simulated with the highest targeted ETc levels at all four growth stages for no water limit and the 400 mm water limit, or at both the G-B and B-F stages for the 300 and 200 mm water limits. For maize, lower targeted ETc levels after silking did not significantly affect maize production due to the high season rainfall, but irrigation of 60% ETc before silking was recommended. These results could be used as guidelines for precision irrigation along with real-time weather information. Keywords: Deficit irrigation, Evapotranspiration, Growth stage, RZWQM, Water use efficiency, Wheat and maize.

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Irrigation of Greenhouse Crops

Horticulturae ◽

10.3390/horticulturae5010007 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 5 (1) ◽

pp. 7 ◽

Cited By ~ 16

Author(s):

Georgios Nikolaou ◽

Damianos Neocleous ◽

Nikolaos Katsoulas ◽

Constantinos Kittas

Keyword(s):

Personal Experience ◽

Management Practices ◽

Production Systems ◽

Irrigation Management ◽

Daily Basis ◽

Irrigation Scheduling ◽

Greenhouse Production ◽

Greenhouse Crops ◽

Irrigation Control ◽

Further Development

Precision agricultural greenhouse systems indicate considerable scope for improvement of irrigation management practices, since growers typically irrigate crops based on their personal experience. Soil-based greenhouse crop irrigation management requires estimation on a daily basis, whereas soilless systems must be estimated on an hourly or even shorter interval schedule. Historically, irrigation scheduling methods have been based on soil or substrate monitoring, dependent on climate or time with each having both strengths and weaknesses. Recently, plant-based monitoring or plant reflectance-derived indices have been developed, yet their potential is limited for estimating the irrigation rate in order to apply proper irrigation scheduling. Optimization of irrigation practices imposes different irrigation approaches, based on prevailing greenhouse environments, considering plant-water-soil relationships. This article presents a comprehensive review of the literature, which deals with irrigation scheduling approaches applied for soil and soilless greenhouse production systems. Irrigation decisions are categorized according to whether or not an automatic irrigation control has the ability to support a feedback irrigation decision system. The need for further development of neural networks systems is required.

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Field and Modeling Study on Manual and Automatic Irrigation Scheduling under Deficit Irrigation of Greenhouse Cucumber

Sustainability ◽

10.3390/su12239819 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 12 (23) ◽

pp. 9819

Author(s):

Abdelraouf R. E. ◽

H. G. Ghanem ◽

Najat A. Bukhari ◽

Mohamed El-Zaidy

Keyword(s):

Automatic Control ◽

Irrigation Water ◽

Deficit Irrigation ◽

Water Productivity ◽

N Uptake ◽

Irrigation Schedule ◽

Irrigation Management ◽

Irrigation Scheduling ◽

Research Centre ◽

Arid Zones

The primary goal of all those working in the field of sustainable water management, particularly in the arid and semi-arid zones, is to increase irrigation efficiency, reduce irrigation water losses, and improve water productivity for all crops. This study assessed the automatic irrigation scheduling and irrigation management on the growth, yield, and water productivity of cucumber under greenhouse conditions. A field experiment was conducted using cucumber grown in aplastic greenhouse during the winter of 2017/18 and 2018/19 at the research farm station of the National Research Centre (NRC), El-Noubaria Region, Behaira Governorate, Egypt. In a split-plot experiment, two different methods to control irrigation scheduling (manual control (MC) and automatic control (AC)) were used in the main plots and three deficit irrigation treatments (100% of full irrigation (FI), 80% of FI, and 60% of FI). Through the obtained results, it was found that the use of the automatic control of the irrigation schedule led to an improvement in the productivity and quality characteristics of the cucumber crop. Automatic irrigation control created healthy conditions for the plant roots located under the least water stress. This led to an increase in nitrogen uptake at the ages of 3, 5, 7, and 9 weeks after planting in addition to improving the total leaf area and the chlorophyll content of leaves, which consequently had a greater effect on increasing yield and water productivity of cucumber. Although the highest values of cucumber productivity were obtained with irrigation at 100% of FI, there were no significant differences between 100% FI and 80% of FI, therefore it is preferable to irrigate at 80% of FI, and this means saving 20% of irrigation water that can be used to irrigate other areas. The SALTMED model simulating all of the following evaluation criteria performed well for soil moisture content and N-uptake as well as the leaves area, the yield, and water productivity of cucumber for all treatments for the two growing seasons 2017/18 and 2018/19, with the overall R2 of 0.882, 0.903, 0.975, 0.907, and 0.933, respectively.

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Using High-Spatiotemporal Thermal Satellite ET Retrievals for Operational Water Use and Stress Monitoring in a California Vineyard

Remote Sensing ◽

10.3390/rs11182124 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 11 (18) ◽

pp. 2124 ◽

Cited By ~ 5

Author(s):

Knipper ◽

Kustas ◽

Anderson ◽

Alsina ◽

Hain ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Data Fusion ◽

Water Use ◽

Deficit Irrigation ◽

Irrigation Management ◽

Growing Season ◽

Irrigation Scheduling ◽

Data Availability ◽

Sensor Data ◽

Water Requirements ◽

Fusion Approach

In viticulture, deficit irrigation strategies are often implemented to control vine canopy growth and to impose stress at critical stages of vine growth to improve wine grape quality. To support deficit irrigation scheduling, remote sensing technologies can be employed in the mapping of evapotranspiration (ET) at the field to sub-field scales, quantifying time-varying vineyard water requirements and actual water use. In the current study, we investigate the utility of ET maps derived from thermal infrared satellite imagery over a vineyard in the Central Valley of California equipped with a variable rate drip irrigation (VRDI) system which enables differential water applications at the 30 × 30 m scale. To support irrigation management at that scale, we utilized a thermal-based multi-sensor data fusion approach to generate weekly total actual ET (ETa) estimates at 30 m spatial resolution, coinciding with the resolution of the Landsat reflectance bands. Crop water requirements (ETc) were defined with a vegetative index (VI)-based approach. To test capacity to capture stress signals, the vineyard was sub-divided into four blocks with different irrigation management strategies and goals, inducing varying degrees of stress during the growing season. Results indicate derived weekly total ET from the thermal-based data fusion approach match well with observations. The thermal-based method was also able to capture the spatial heterogeneity in ET over the vineyard due to a water stress event imposed on two of the four vineyard blocks. This transient stress event was not reflected in the VI-based ETc estimate, highlighting the value of thermal band imaging. While the data fusion system provided valuable information, latency in current satellite data availability, particularly from Landsat, impacts operational applications over the course of a growing season.

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An Online Tool for Estimating Evapotranspiration and Irrigation Requirements of Crops in South Carolina

The Journal of South Carolina Water Resources ◽

10.34068/jscwr.05.06 ◽

2018 ◽

pp. 69-73

Author(s):

José O. Payero

Keyword(s):

South Carolina ◽

Agricultural Sector ◽

Irrigation Scheduling ◽

Weather Data ◽

Irrigation Planning ◽

Agricultural Producers ◽

Online Tool ◽

The Media ◽

Scheduling Tool ◽

Irrigation Requirements

In recent years, there has been an increased interest in South Carolina regarding the amount of water used by different consumers, especially agricultural producers. This interest has sparked conversations among different stakeholders, including the media, policy makers, producers, scientists, and the general public, regarding the current state and future of water resources in the state. Central to these discussions, from the agricultural sector perspective, is the question of how much water producers really need to grow crops. The objective of this study was, therefore, to develop an online tool to use local South Carolina historic weather data to estimate daily and seasonal crop evapotranspiration and irrigation requirements for different crops. The overall goal was for the new tool to assist farmers and other stakeholders to better plan irrigation water allocations and management. Therefore, an interactive online tool called ETcCalc was created to address this objective. ETcCalc, which is freely available online (http://sccropwater.com), was developed using historic weather data; therefore, it is suitable as an irrigation planning tool rather than a real-time irrigation scheduling tool.

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Citrus Irrigation Management

EDIS ◽

10.32473/edis-ss660-2017 ◽

2017 ◽

Vol 2017 (5) ◽

Author(s):

Davie Mayeso Kadyampakeni ◽

Kelly T. Morgan ◽

Mongi Zekri ◽

Rhuanito Ferrarezi ◽

Arnold Schumann ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Water Stress ◽

Physiological Activity ◽

Irrigation Management ◽

Fruit Size ◽

Irrigation Scheduling ◽

Leaf Expansion ◽

Tree Canopy ◽

Limiting Factor ◽

Irrigation Frequency ◽

Citrus Production

Water is a limiting factor in Florida citrus production during the majority of the year because of the low water holding capacity of sandy soils resulting from low clay and the non-uniform distribution of the rainfall. In Florida, the major portion of rainfall comes in June through September. However, rainfall is scarce during the dry period from February through May, which coincides with the critical stages of bloom, leaf expansion, fruit set, and fruit enlargement. Irrigation is practiced to provide water when rainfall is not sufficient or timely to meet water needs. Proper irrigation scheduling is the application of water to crops only when needed and only in the amounts needed; that is, determining when to irrigate and how much water to apply. With proper irrigation scheduling, yield will not be limited by water stress. With citrus greening (HLB), irrigation scheduling is becoming more important and critical and growers cannot afford water stress or water excess. Any degree of water stress or imbalance can produce a deleterious change in physiological activity of growth and production of citrus trees. The number of fruit, fruit size, and tree canopy are reduced and premature fruit drop is increased with water stress. Extension growth in shoots and roots and leaf expansion are all negatively impacted by water stress. Other benefits of proper irrigation scheduling include reduced loss of nutrients from leaching as a result of excess water applications and reduced pollution of groundwater or surface waters from the leaching of nutrients. Recent studies have shown that for HLB-affected trees, irrigation frequency should increase and irrigation amounts should decrease to minimize water stress from drought stress or water excess, while ensuring optimal water availability in the rootzone at all times.

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Irrigation Scheduling with Soil Gas Diffusivity as a Decision Tool to Mitigate N2O Emissions from a Urine-Affected Pasture

Agriculture ◽

10.3390/agriculture11050443 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 11 (5) ◽

pp. 443

Author(s):

Camille Rousset ◽

Timothy J. Clough ◽

Peter R. Grace ◽

David W. Rowlings ◽

Clemens Scheer

Keyword(s):

Irrigation Management ◽

Irrigation Treatment ◽

Irrigation Scheduling ◽

Soil Gas ◽

N2o Emissions ◽

Irrigation Frequency ◽

Water Demands ◽

Gas Diffusivity ◽

Matter Production ◽

Access To Water

Pastures require year-round access to water and in some locations rely on irrigation during dry periods. Currently, there is a dearth of knowledge about the potential for using irrigation to mitigate N2O emissions. This study aimed to mitigate N2O losses from intensely managed pastures by adjusting irrigation frequency using soil gas diffusivity (Dp/Do) thresholds. Two irrigation regimes were compared; a standard irrigation treatment based on farmer practice (15 mm applied every 3 days) versus an optimised irrigation treatment where irrigation was applied when soil Dp/Do was ≈0.033 (equivalent to 50% of plant available water). Cow urine was applied at a rate of 700 kg N ha−1 to simulate a ruminant urine deposition event. In addition to N2O fluxes, soil moisture content was monitored hourly, Dp/Do was modelled, and pasture dry matter production was measured. Standard irrigation practices resulted in higher (p = 0.09) cumulative N2O emissions than the optimised irrigation treatment. Pasture growth rates under treatments did not differ. Denitrification during re-wetting events (irrigation and rain) contributed to soil N2O emissions. These results warrant further modelling of irrigation management as a mitigation option for N2O emissions from pasture soils, based on Dp/Do thresholds, rainfall, plant water demands and evapotranspiration.

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Modeling maize production under growth stage-based deficit irrigation management with RZWQM2

Agricultural Water Management ◽

10.1016/j.agwat.2021.106767 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 248 ◽

pp. 106767

Author(s):

Huihui Zhang ◽

Liwang Ma ◽

Kyle R. Douglas-Mankin ◽

Ming Han ◽

Thomas J. Trout

Keyword(s):

Deficit Irrigation ◽

Growth Stage ◽

Irrigation Management ◽

Maize Production

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Maize Seedling Establishment, Grain Yield and Crop Water Productivity Response to Seed Priming and Irrigation Management in a Mediterranean Arid Environment

Agronomy ◽

10.3390/agronomy11040756 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 11 (4) ◽

pp. 756

Author(s):

AbdAllah M. El-Sanatawy ◽

Ahmed S. M. El-Kholy ◽

Mohamed M. A. Ali ◽

Mohamed F. Awad ◽

Elsayed Mansour

Keyword(s):

Grain Yield ◽

Deficit Irrigation ◽

Water Productivity ◽

Irrigation Management ◽

Seed Priming ◽

Severe Drought ◽

Arid Environments ◽

Crop Water ◽

Crop Water Productivity ◽

Irrigation Regimes

Water shortage is a major environmental stress that destructively impacts maize production, particularly in arid regions. Therefore, improving irrigation management and increasing productivity per unit of water applied are needed, especially under the rising temperature and precipitation fluctuations induced by climate change. Laboratory and field trials were carried out in the present study, which were aimed at assessing the possibility of promoting maize germination, growth, grain yield and crop water productivity (CWP) using seed priming under different irrigation regimes. Two seed priming treatments, i.e., hydro-priming and hardening versus unprimed seeds, were applied under four irrigation regimes, i.e., 120, 100, 80 and 60% of estimated crop evapotranspiration (ETc). The obtained results indicated that increasing irrigation water from 100% up to 120% ETc did not significantly increase grain yield or contributing traits, while it decreased CWP. Deficit irrigation of 80 and 60% ETc gradually decreased grain yield and all attributed traits. Seed priming significantly ameliorated seedlings’ vigor as indicated by earlier germination, higher germination percentage, longer roots and shoots, and heavier fresh and dry weight than unprimed seeds with the superiority of hardening treatment. Additionally, under field conditions, seed priming significantly increased grain yield, yield contributing traits and CWP compared with unprimed treatment. Interestingly, the results reflect the role of seed priming, particularly hardening, in mitigating negative impacts of drought stress and enhancing maize growth, grain yield and attributed traits as well as CWP under deficit irrigation conditions. This was demonstrated by a significant increase in grain yield and CWP under moderate drought and severe drought conditions compared with unprimed treatment. These results highlight that efficient irrigation management and seed priming can increase maize yield and water productivity in arid environments.

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