ISHS Acta Horticulturae 228: IV International Symposium on Water Supply and Irrigation in the Open and under Protected Cultivation
COMPUTER ASSISTED DESIGN AND OPERATION OF AN IRRIGATION SCHEDULE |
| Authors: | D. Raes, P. Van Aelst |
| Abstract:
With a set of computer programs, the seasonal net irrigation requirements are calculated for a given climate, crop and soil and number of growing seasons. From the calculated requirements, one value with the required probability of non-exceedance is selected. On the basis of the selected net irrigation requirement, a fixed irrigation schedule is designed. An example is presented for Jaca in Spain. In stead of using a fixed irrigation schedule based on historical climatological data, the scheduling can be adapted to actual weather. For different horticultural crops grown on a silty clay loam, it has been calculated that 9 to 15 % of irrigation water could be saved over a period of 9 years with such a dynamic irrigation schedule. The scheduling guidelines for the next days were predicted by the BUDGET-model. BUDGET is a simple soil water balance model, which however considers water movement above field capacity. The importance of this on irrigation scheduling is demonstrated. | |
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