Articles
Estimation of crop coefficients from canopy cover and height for a drip-irrigated young almond orchard
Article number
1406_22
Pages
153 – 160
Language
English
Abstract
In the last decade, there has been a significant growth in irrigated almond orchards planted in arid and semiarid areas of the Mediterranean basin with water resources scarcity.
Estimating accurate crop coefficients becomes critical for optimizing the irrigation scheduling and improving water use efficiency of this fruit tree.
The goal of this study was to estimate the basal crop coefficient (Kcb) values of drip-irrigated young almond trees under non-limiting soil water content conditions, based on measurements of fraction of ground covered by the canopy (fc) and tree height (h) (approach proposed by Allen and Pereira (2009)). A 3-year field experiment was carried out in a ~12.5 ha commercial young almond (Prunus dulcis (Mill.) D.A. Webb) orchard located in Hellín, Albacete of southeast Spain.
Almond trees were planted in 2018 with ‘Penta’ grafted onto the ‘GF-677’ rootstock.
Tree spacing was 5 m (within row) and 6 m (inter-row), resulting in 333 trees ha‑1. The plot is provided with surface and subsurface drip-irrigated systems.
Field measurements of fc and h were performed periodically (every 15-day) during three consecutive growing seasons from 2019 to 2021. No significant differences in fc nor h were observed between irrigation systems, so the estimated Kcb values were the same for both drip-irrigation systems.
Values of mean effective canopy cover (fc eff) during mid-season stage ranged between 0.16 in 2019 and 0.38 in 2021, whereas average h values for this stage ranged between 2.36 and 3.45 m in 2019 and 2021, respectively.
These values of fc eff and h resulted in average mid-season basal crop coefficients (Kcb-mid) of 0.30 in 2019, 0.45 in 2020 and 0.55 in 2021.
Estimating accurate crop coefficients becomes critical for optimizing the irrigation scheduling and improving water use efficiency of this fruit tree.
The goal of this study was to estimate the basal crop coefficient (Kcb) values of drip-irrigated young almond trees under non-limiting soil water content conditions, based on measurements of fraction of ground covered by the canopy (fc) and tree height (h) (approach proposed by Allen and Pereira (2009)). A 3-year field experiment was carried out in a ~12.5 ha commercial young almond (Prunus dulcis (Mill.) D.A. Webb) orchard located in Hellín, Albacete of southeast Spain.
Almond trees were planted in 2018 with ‘Penta’ grafted onto the ‘GF-677’ rootstock.
Tree spacing was 5 m (within row) and 6 m (inter-row), resulting in 333 trees ha‑1. The plot is provided with surface and subsurface drip-irrigated systems.
Field measurements of fc and h were performed periodically (every 15-day) during three consecutive growing seasons from 2019 to 2021. No significant differences in fc nor h were observed between irrigation systems, so the estimated Kcb values were the same for both drip-irrigation systems.
Values of mean effective canopy cover (fc eff) during mid-season stage ranged between 0.16 in 2019 and 0.38 in 2021, whereas average h values for this stage ranged between 2.36 and 3.45 m in 2019 and 2021, respectively.
These values of fc eff and h resulted in average mid-season basal crop coefficients (Kcb-mid) of 0.30 in 2019, 0.45 in 2020 and 0.55 in 2021.
Authors
R. López-Urrea, F. Montoya, L.L. Simón, F. Valentín, J. González-Piqueras, A. Rodríguez, J.M. Sánchez
Keywords
Allen & Pereira approach, effective canopy cover, density coefficient, Kcb full, standard climate conditions
Groups involved
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