Numerical calculation of soil water potential in an irrigated ‘conference’ pear orchard

• Published in: Agricultural water management Vol. 148; no. C; pp. 113 - 122
• Main Authors: Janssens, Pieter, Diels, Jan, Vanderborght, Jan, Elsen, Frank, Elsen, Annemie, Deckers, Tom, Vandendriessche, Hilde
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Netherlands Elsevier B.V 01.01.2015; Elsevier
• Subjects: Conferences; HYDRUS; Irrigation; Mathematical analysis; Orchards; Pears; Root distribution; Roots; Sap flow; Sensors; Soil (material); Stem water potential (Ψstem); Watermark sensor; Belgium; USA; Root distribution; Watermark sensor; Sap flow; Stem water potential (Ψstem); HYDRUS
• ISSN: 0378-3774; 1873-2283
• DOI: 10.1016/j.agwat.2014.09.023

•The water extraction pattern of irrigated ‘Conference’ pear trees was acquired.•Accordance between numerical calculated and measured Ψsoil was reasonable.•The sensitivity of the calculation to the selected root distribution was shown. Irrigation in Belgian ‘Conference’ pear orchards is often managed by soil water potential (Ψsoil) sensors. The most widespread sensor among fruit growers in Belgium is the Watermark sensor (Irrometer Co., USA). To gain better insight into the use of the Watermark soil sensor for irrigation scheduling in pear orchards the water extraction pattern of the ‘Conference’ pear trees was acquired by a numerical calculation of Ψsoil in three experimental plots. A reasonable accordance between calculated and measured Ψsoil was observed with R2=0.56 and RMSE=13.4kPa over 1320 observations. Furthermore the sensitivity of the numerical calculation to the selected root distribution was shown. The Ψsoil calculation with the root distribution parameterized by site specific fine root length observations gave satisfactory results for all plots, in contrast to Ψsoil calculation based on other root distributions.