Accurate irrigation scheduling maximizes the
benefits of irrigation while minimizing potential
negative impacts of over-irrigation or under irrigation.
Published April 1964. Facts and recommendations in this publication may no longer be valid. Please look for up-to-date information in the OSU Extension Catalog: http://extension.oregonstate.edu/catalog
In the late 1980s, the U.S. Pacific Northwest potato industry faced a crisis. Potato tuber quality was inadequate to meet the needs of potato processing companies due to a condition called “sugar ends” or “dark ends” in fried tuber
slices. This defect was common in tubers grown on stressed Russet...
The main purpose for irrigating is to supply needed water for crops. Plant growth is dependent on photosynthesis. While the plant exchanges gases with the air for photosynthesis, some water evaporates. Water is taken up from the soil by plant roots to replace
this water. The water leaving the plant...
In this work, we first introduce a novel approach to the long term irrigation scheduling
using Genetic Algorithms (GAs). We explore the effectiveness of GAs in the context of
optimizing nonlinear crop models and describe application requirements and implementation of
the technique. GAs were found to converge quickly to near-optimal...
When water is plentiful, growers usually schedule irrigation practices around other farming activities. For example, most growers change furrow irrigation sets at 12- or 24-hour intervals because this timing is convenient and uses labor efficiently. When water is in short supply, you need to rethink some practices to obtain maximum...
Several methods of infering plant water stress for
irrigation scheduling are based upon measurements of the
environment in which the plants grow. These measurements
include parameters such as soil water content, air
temperature, pan evaporation and incident radiation. It is
hypothesized that improved estimates of plant water deficit
can be...
Many regions in North America are experiencing water shortages, and these conditions are expected to worsen. The next generation of irrigation scheduling applications must therefore be capable of providing operational advice in support of deficit irrigation strategies. However, the theoretical, technical, and practical challenges associated with deficit irrigation scheduling are...
Irrigated agriculture constitutes the greatest consumptive water use globally, so that irrigation efficiency measures are an important part of global efforts to best utilize this limited resource. However, greater irrigation efficiency must be achieved while simultaneously maintaining or increasing crop yields and farming profitability. Incremental water use decisions are made...