METHOD FOR IRRIGATION SCHEDULING BASED ON SOIL MOISTUREDATA ACQUISITION

摘要

The water requirements of crops are dependent on evapotranspiration (ET), soilchemistry, and the crop’s maximum allowable depletion (MAD). Direct measurements ofroot zone soil moisture, water application along with published ET values and soiltextures, can be used in a soil water balance model that can significantly optimizeirrigation efficiency. Over the past five years, advancements in computermicroprocessors, memory, and software development tools has improved data acquisitionmethods and made data acquisition system integration more reliable and more costeffective. We discuss here an irrigation scheduling method based on a volumetric soilmoisture balance model and data acquisition.