Search results for " water potential."
showing 10 items of 34 documents
Comparing actual evapotranspiration and plant water potential on a vineyard
2011
Agricultural water requirement in arid and semi-arid environments represents an important fraction of the total water consumption, suggesting the need of appropriate water management practices to sparingly use the resource. Furthermore the quality and quantity of some crops products, such as grape, is improved under a controlled amount of water stress. The latter is related, on a side to actual evapotranspiration (ET) through water demand, on the other side to plant water content through leaf water potential. Residual energy balance approaches based on remote sensing allow to estimate the spatial distribution of daily actual ET at plant scale, representing an useful tool to detect its spati…
Predicting soil and plant water status dynamic in olive orchards under different irrigation systems with Hydrus-2D: Model performance and scenario an…
2018
The paper analyzes the performance of Hydrus-2D model to simulate the dynamic of soil water contents and transpiration fluxes in an olive orchard in which two different irrigation systems were used in 2011 and 2012. The relationship between measured midday stem water potential, MSWP, and simulated relative transpiration (ratio between simulated actual and maximum crop transpiration), Ks, was also identified with the aim to use the model for crop water status predictions. Finally, a scenario analysis was carried out for irrigation management purposes, by considering the level of crop water stress achieved in the different phases of the vegetative growth. The results evidenced that active roo…
Grapevine physiological response to row orientation-induced spatial radiation and microclimate changes
2020
Terroir factors and vineyard practices largely determine canopy and root system functioning. In this study, changes in soil conditions, multi-level (vertical, horizontal) light interception (quantitative, photographic, schematic, 3D modelled), leaf water potential and photosynthetic activity were measured during the grape ripening period on NS, EW, NE-SW, and NW-SE orientated (Southern Hemisphere) vertically trellised Shiraz grapevine canopies. It was hypothesised that the spatial radiation interception angle and radiation distribution of differently orientated and vertically trained grapevine rows would affect soil conditions and vine physiological activity. Soil water content showed an in…
Comparative responses of ‘Gala’ and ‘Fuji’ apple trees to deficit irrigation: Placement versus volume effects
2012
Aims: Climate, soil water potential (SWP), leaf relative water content (RWC), stomatal conductance (gs), fruit and shoot growth, and carbohydrate levels were monitored during the 2008 and 2009 growing seasons to study the responses of 'Gala' and 'Fuji' apple trees to irrigation placement or volume. Methods: Three irrigation treatments were imposed, conventional irrigation (CI), partial root-zone drying (PRD, 50% of CI water on one side of the root-zone, which was alternated periodically), and continuous deficit irrigation (DI, 50% of CI water on both sides of the root-zone). Results: After each irrigation season, DI generated twice the soil water deficit (SWDint) than PRD (average of dry an…
Recurrent deficit irrigation and fruit harvest affect tree water relations and fruitlet growth in ‘valencia’ orange
2019
Background – Partial rootzone drying is an irrigation strategy known for increasing water use efficiency without significantly affecting tree water status. ‘Valencia’ oranges have a very long development period and nearly mature fruit and new fruitlets may be present at the same time on the tree, competing for water and assimilates. Objectives – The present study investigates the effect of recurrent deficit irrigation and fruit harvest on tree water status and fruitlet growth of ‘Valencia’ orange. Methods – Forty-eight adult trees were exposed to three irrigation treatments for seven years (2007–2013): irrigation with 100% of ETc (CI), continuous deficit irrigation (DI, 50% of CI) and parti…
E.O.-based estimation of transpiration and crop water requirements for vineyards: a case study in southern Italy
2014
An efficient use of water for irrigation is a challenging task. From an agronomical point of view, it requires establishing the optimal amount of water to be supplied, at the correct time, based on phenological phase and water stress spatial distribution. Indeed, the knowledge of the actual water stress is essential for agronomic decisions, vineyards need to be managed to maintain a moderate water stress, thus allowing to optimize berries quality and quantity. Methods for quickly quantifying where, when and in what extent, vines begin to experience water stress are beneficial. Traditional point based methodologies, such those based on Scholander pressure chamber, even if well established ar…
Mapping evapotranspiration on vineyards: A comparison between Penman-Monteith and energy balance approaches for operational purposes
2012
Estimation of evapotranspiration (ET) in Sicilian vineyard is an emerging issue since these agricultural systems are more and more converted from rainfed to irrigated conditions, with significant impacts on the management of the scarce water resources of the region. The choice of the most appropriate methodology for assessing water use in these systems is still an issue of debating, due to the complexity of canopy and root systems and for their high spatial fragmentation. In vineyards, quality and quantity of the final product are dependent on the controlled stress conditions to be set trough irrigation. This paper reports an application of the well-known Penman-Monteith approach, applied i…
Improvement of FAO-56 Model to Estimate Transpiration Fluxes of Drought Tolerant Crops under Soil Water Deficit: Application for Olive Groves
2014
[EN] Agro-hydrological models are considered an economic and simple tool for quantifying crop water requirements. In the last two decades, agro-hydrological physically based models have been developed to simulate mass and energy exchange processes in the soil-plant-atmosphere system. Although very reliable, because of the high number of required variables, simplified models have been proposed to quantify crop water consumes. The main aim of this paper is to propose an amendment of the Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) of the United Nations FAO-56 spreadsheet program to introduce a more realistic shape of the stress function, valid for mature olive orchards (Olea europaea L.). The mod…
Detecting crop water status in mature olive orchards using vegetation spectral measurements.
2014
Full spectral measurements (350–2500 nm) at tree canopy and leaf levels and the corresponding leaf water potentials (LWP) were acquired in an olive grove of Sicily, at different hours of the day, during summer season 2011. The main objective of the work was to assess, on the basis of the experimental data-set, two different approaches to detect crop water status in terms of LWP. Specifically, using existing families of Vegetation Indices (VIs) and applying Partial Least Squares Regression (PLSR) were optimised and tested. The results indicated that a satisfactory estimation of LWP at tree canopy and leaf levels can be obtained using vegetation indices based on the near infrared–shortwave in…
Using field measurements and FAO-56 model to assess the eco-physiological response of citrus orchards under regulated deficit irrigation
2017
[EN] Micro-irrigation is considered one of the most efficient water distribution systems and allows increasing water use efficiency if coupled with effective water-saving irrigation management strategies as regulated deficit irrigation (RDI) or partial root-zone drying (PRD) techniques. However, application of these strategies makes it crucial the real-time monitoring of soil and crop water status, in order to identify appropriate irrigation scheduling parameters (irrigation timing and doses) and to prevent irreversible damage of plant system and/or crop yield reductions. Even if midday stem water potential (MSWP) is considered one of the most affordable indicator for direct determinations …