Predicting soil moisture conditions for arable free draining soils in Ireland under spring cereal crop production

Temporal prediction of soil moisture and evapotranspiration has a crucial role in agricultural and environmental management. A lack of Irish models for predicting evapotranspiration and soil moisture conditions for arable soils still represents a knowledge gap in this particular area of Irish agro-c...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inIrish journal of agricultural and food research Vol. 49; no. 2; pp. 99 - 113
Main Authors Premrov, A., Schulte, R.P.O., Coxon, C.E., Hackett, R., Richards, K.G.
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Teagasc 01.01.2010
Subjects
Agricultural soils
Agrology
Crops
Evapotranspiration
Grassland soils
Leaching
Modeling
Soil conditioners
Soil water
Soil water deficit
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Summary:Temporal prediction of soil moisture and evapotranspiration has a crucial role in agricultural and environmental management. A lack of Irish models for predicting evapotranspiration and soil moisture conditions for arable soils still represents a knowledge gap in this particular area of Irish agro-climatic modelling. The soil moisture deficit (SMD) crop model presented in this paper is based on the SMD hybrid model for Irish grassland (Schulte et al., 2005). Crop and site specific components (free-draining soil) have been integrated in the new model, which was calibrated and tested using soil tension measurements from two experimental sites located on a well-drained soil under spring barley cultivation in south-eastern Ireland. Calibration of the model gave an R² of 0.71 for the relationship between predicted SMD and measured soil tension, while model testing yielded R² values of 0.67 and 0.65 (two sites). The crop model presented here is designed to predict soil moisture conditions and effective drainage (i.e., leaching events). The model provided reasonable predictions of soil moisture conditions and effective drainage within its boundaries, i.e., free-draining land used for spring cereal production under Irish conditions. In general, the model is simple and practical due to the small number of required input parameters, and due to model outputs that have good practical applicability, such as for computing the cumulative amount of watersoluble nutrients leached from arable land under spring cereals in free-draining soils.
ISSN:0791-6833
2009-9029