Improving scheduling, benchmarking and forecasting to boost irrigation productivity

Author(s):  
Andrew Western ◽  
Danlu Guo ◽  
Arash Parehkar ◽  
Zitian Gao ◽  
Dongryeol Ryu ◽  
...  

<p>Irrigation water is an expensive and limited resource, and optimized water use is beneficial to saving water while boosting productivity. This project aims to develop integrated irrigation scheduling, benchmarking and forecasting capabilities to inform optimal irrigation practices and the suitable tools and information required for this. To achieve this, we designed a three-year project which combines simulations and field-scale monitoring. One aspect of this project is to develop a comprehensive uncertainty framework to better understand the uncertainty in scheduling, which is informed by soil water models, along with multiple sources of information such as soil, crop, weather and field management. Besides, we are also conducting large-scale benchmarking study to identify better irrigation practices across multiple farms, fields, crop types and seasons. The project outcomes will be integrated with our partner, Rubicon’s water ordering portal and adopted by most Australian irrigation farmers, with significant long-term benefits expected in agricultural production and water conservation. </p>

HortScience ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 55 (1) ◽  
pp. 83-88 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jeff B. Million ◽  
Thomas H. Yeager

Two experiments were conducted to determine if a leaching fraction (LF)-guided irrigation practice with fixed irrigation run times between LF tests (LF_FX) could be improved by making additional adjustments to irrigation run times based on real-time weather information, including rain, using an evapotranspiration-based irrigation scheduling program for container production (LF_ET). The effect of the two irrigation practices on plant growth and water use was tested at three target LF values (10%, 20%, and 40%). For both Viburnum odoratissimum (Expt. 1) and Podocarpus macrophyllus (Expt. 2) grown in 36-cm-diameter containers with spray-stake microirrigation, the change in plant size was unaffected by irrigation treatments. LF_ET reduced water use by 10% compared with LF_FX in Expt. 2 but had no effect (P < 0.05) on water use in Expt. 1. Decreasing the target LF from 40% to 20% reduced water use 28% in both experiments and this effect was similar for both irrigation practices. For the irrigation system and irrigation schedule used in these experiments, we concluded that an LF-guided irrigation schedule with a target LF of 10% resulted in plant growth similar to one with a target LF of 40% and that the addition of a real-time weather adjustment to irrigation run times provided little or no improvement in water conservation compared with a periodic adjustment based solely on LF testing.


2020 ◽  
Vol 33 (20) ◽  
pp. 8737-8749 ◽  
Author(s):  
William K. M. Lau ◽  
Weichen Tao

AbstractIn this study, long-term structural changes in the intertropical convergence zone (ITCZ) and associated precipitation–radiation–circulation feedback processes are examined using multiple sources of reanalysis data for temperature, winds, moisture, and observed precipitation and outgoing longwave radiation (OLR) during 1980–2014. Consistent with CMIP5 climate model projections of the “deep tropical squeeze” under greenhouse warming, this period witnessed a warming and wetting (increased specific humidity) global trend, characterized by a narrowing of the ITCZ core with increased precipitation, coupled to widespread tropospheric drying (deficient relative humidity), increased OLR in the subtropics and midlatitudes, a widening of the descending branches of the Hadley circulation, and a poleward shift of the jet streams in both hemispheres. The widespread tropospheric drying stems from 1) a faster rate of increased saturated water vapor with warming, relative to the increase in ambient moisture due to convective and large-scale transport, and 2) enhanced anomalous subsidence, and low-level moisture divergence in the subtropics and midlatitudes. The long-term trend in enhanced precipitation (latent heating) in the ITCZ core region is strongly coupled to increasing OLR (radiative cooling to space) in the expanding dry zones, particularly over land regions in the subtropics and midlatitudes, arguably as a necessary condition for global thermodynamic energy balance. Analyses of the trend patterns in vertical profiles of p velocity, temperature, and relative humidity with respect to ITCZ precipitation rate and OLR reveal that the contrast between the wet and dry regions in the troposphere has been increasing globally, with the ITCZ core getting wetter and contracting, while the marginal convective and dry zones are getting drier and expanding.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel A. Polasky ◽  
Daniel J Geiszler ◽  
Fengchao Yu ◽  
Alexey I Nesvizhskii

Rapidly improving methods for glycoproteomics have enabled increasingly large-scale analyses of complex glycopeptide samples, but annotating the resulting mass spectrometry data with high confidence remains a major bottleneck. We recently introduced a fast and sensitive glycoproteomics search method in our MSFragger search engine, which reports glycopeptides as a combination of a peptide sequence and the mass of the attached glycan. In samples with complex glycosylation patterns, converting this mass to a specific glycan composition is not straightforward, however, as many glycans have similar or identical masses. Here, we have developed a new method for determining the glycan composition of N-linked glycopeptides fragmented by collision or hybrid activation that uses multiple sources of information from the spectrum, including observed glycan B- (oxonium) and Y-type ions and mass and precursor monoisotopic selection errors to discriminate between possible glycan candidates. Combined with false discovery rate estimation for the glycan assignment, we show this method is capable of specifically and sensitively identifying glycans in complex glycopeptide analyses and effectively controls the rate of false glycan assignments. The new method has been incorporated into the PTM-Shepherd modification analysis tool to work directly with the MSFragger glyco search in the FragPipe graphical user interface, providing a complete computational pipeline for annotation of N-glycopeptide spectra with FDR control of both peptide and glycan components that is both sensitive and robust against false identifications.


Hydrology ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 5 (4) ◽  
pp. 53 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yong Chen ◽  
Gary Marek ◽  
Thomas Marek ◽  
Jerry Moorhead ◽  
Kevin Heflin ◽  
...  

The Ogallala Aquifer has experienced a continuous decline in water levels due to decades of irrigation pumping with minimal recharge. Corn is one of the major irrigated crops in the semi-arid Northern High Plains (NHP) of Texas. Selection of less water-intensive crops may provide opportunities for groundwater conservation. Modeling the long-term hydrologic impacts of alternative crops can be a time-saving and cost-effective alternative to field-based experiments. A newly developed management allowed depletion (MAD) irrigation scheduling algorithm for Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) was used in this study. The impacts of irrigated farming, dryland farming, and continuous fallow on water conservation were evaluated. Results indicated that simulated irrigation, evapotranspiration, and crop yield were representative of the measured data. Approximately 19%, 21%, and 32% reductions in annual groundwater uses were associated with irrigated soybean, sunflower, and sorghum, respectively, as compared to irrigated corn. On average, annual soil water depletion was more than 52 mm for dryland farming scenarios. In contrast, only 18 mm of soil water was lost to evaporation annually, for the long-term continuous fallow simulation. The fallow scenario also showed 31 mm of percolation for aquifer recharge.


2007 ◽  
Vol 33 (3) ◽  
pp. 202-209
Author(s):  
Thayne Montague ◽  
Cynthia McKenney ◽  
Michael Maurer ◽  
Brian Winn

In many climates, irrigating shrubs during establishment is critical for long-term growth and survival. However, little research has been conducted to investigate irrigation requirements of newly transplanted container-grown shrubs. During two growing seasons, we investigated gas exchange and growth of newly planted container-grown crapemyrtle (Lagerstroemia indica ‘Victor’), forsythia (Forsythia × intermedia ‘Lynwood’), Vanhoutte spirea (Spiraea × vanhouttei), and photinia (Photinia × fraseri) transplants placed into landscape beds with and without organic mulch. After transplanting, plants were irrigated twice each week at the following rates: 100%, 75%, and 50% of reference evapotranspiration (ETO). In general, each year, transplants with mulch and transplants receiving 100% or 75% ETO-based irrigation had greater stomatal conductance when compared with transplants without mulch and transplants receiving less irrigation. Growth of transplants followed similar trends. However, it is key to note all transplants survived and appeared healthy throughout the growing season. Even transplants receiving 50% ETO were aesthetically pleasing and had growth acceptable for landscape situations. These findings should be useful for landscape irrigation scheduling and for irrigation managers incorporating water conservation into their landscape maintenance programs.


2016 ◽  
Vol 26 (6) ◽  
pp. 852-861 ◽  
Author(s):  
Laura A. Warner ◽  
Anil Kumar Chaudhary ◽  
Sebastian Galindo-Gonzalez

Uncertain future availability of water is one of the most critical current issues, and outdoor water use contributes substantially to the strain on water resources. Much of the nation’s outdoor water use is through urban landscape irrigation, and one solution for conservation of this limited resource is to change home landscape irrigation practices. Thus, households that use landscape irrigation are an important audience for Florida extension programs. Complex, statewide water conservation programs are difficult to evaluate because of program variability and limited resources, yet evaluation is an important task that reveals the success, or failure, of a program. This study compared factors between people who have or have not engaged in Florida extension programs. The targeting outcomes of programs model and theory of planned behavior were used as a basis for measuring different levels of possible outcomes. There were no differences in attitudes toward good irrigation practices and perceived ability to adopt them between extension participants and nonparticipants. There were differences between the two groups in perceived normative attitudes, intent to adopt good irrigation practices, and actual engagement in landscape water conservation practices. Findings demonstrate a relationship exists between these characteristics and engagement with extension. The greatest differences were stronger social norms and more engagement in complex conservation behaviors among people who had attended extension programs. It is not known how much externalities play a role in leading certain people to seek out extension education. Extension professionals should use the findings of this study to target nonparticipants and deliver more impactful programs.


1997 ◽  
Vol 62 (4) ◽  
pp. 664-681 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard H. Wilshusen ◽  
Melissa J. Churchill ◽  
James M. Potter

More than 20 examples of probable prehistoric water basins with minimum storage capacities of 10,000–25,000 gallons of water are known in the Mesa Verde region of the American Southwest. The temporal placement of these artificially constructed basins, their exact uses, and their importance as public architecture have been poorly understood. We summarize the general literature on these features, give a detailed account of the excavation results of a dam and basin that we tested and dated, and then synthesize all available data from the gray literature on prehistoric water basins in our area. We argue that water basins and reservoirs in the northern Southwest typically stored domestic water for particular communities and that the first evidence of these public features is probably associated with Chaco-era communities. These features represent early experiments with large-scale water conservation and suggest a long-term commitment to locales by specific communities. Their locations along the canyon edges foreshadow shifts in settlement and increased water conservation strategies that become more pronounced in the later Great Pueblo-period villages-the last villages in this area before the migration of Puebloan people to the south after A.D. 1280.


1994 ◽  
Vol 144 ◽  
pp. 29-33
Author(s):  
P. Ambrož

AbstractThe large-scale coronal structures observed during the sporadically visible solar eclipses were compared with the numerically extrapolated field-line structures of coronal magnetic field. A characteristic relationship between the observed structures of coronal plasma and the magnetic field line configurations was determined. The long-term evolution of large scale coronal structures inferred from photospheric magnetic observations in the course of 11- and 22-year solar cycles is described.Some known parameters, such as the source surface radius, or coronal rotation rate are discussed and actually interpreted. A relation between the large-scale photospheric magnetic field evolution and the coronal structure rearrangement is demonstrated.


Author(s):  
Linda S. Gottfredson ◽  
Joan M. Finucci ◽  
Barton Childs

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