Scheduling irrigation using an approach based on the van Genuchten model

Xi Liang, Vasilis Liakos, Ole Wendroth and George Vellidis

Agricultural Water Management, 2016, vol. 176, issue C, 170-179

Abstract: Crop irrigation which results in high water use efficiencies typically uses science-based irrigation scheduling tools to determine irrigation application timing and quantities. Although a large variety of sensors are available for measuring soil moisture status, there are a few easy-to-use irrigation scheduling tools which provide a yes/no irrigation decision or recommend how much water should be applied to return the soil profile to an optimal soil moisture condition. The work described here developed a method which uses soil water tension data from soil moisture sensors and the van Genuchten model to provide irrigation scheduling recommendations. The strength of the method is that it can use data readily available from USDA-NRCS soil surveys to predict soil water retention curves and calculate the volumetric water content and soil water tension of a soil at field capacity. Those parameters are then used to translate measured soil water tension into irrigation recommendations which are specific to the soil moisture status of the soil. The method was validated by comparing its results to other published methods and with continuous soil water tension data with multiple wetting and drying cycles from six fields in southern Georgia, USA. Finally, the model was incorporated into a web-based irrigation scheduling tool and used in conjunction with a wireless soil moisture sensing system to schedule irrigation in a large commercial field during 2015. By the van Genuchten model, we used about two thirds of the irrigation water and produced about the same yields as a commonly used yes/no irrigation decision tool. The presented method can be used to build resiliency to climate variability because it provides growers with data which they can use to make informed decisions about managing their water resources.

Keywords: Field capacity; Permanent wilting point; Volumetric water content; Soil water tension (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (8)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0378377416301925
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:agiwat:v:176:y:2016:i:c:p:170-179

DOI: 10.1016/j.agwat.2016.05.030

Access Statistics for this article

Agricultural Water Management is currently edited by B.E. Clothier, W. Dierickx, J. Oster and D. Wichelns

More articles in Agricultural Water Management from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().