IMPROVEMENTS TO INFRA-RED THERMOMETRY FOR IRRIGATION SCHEDULING IN HUMID CLIMATES

The use of infra-red thermometry to calculate a “Crop Water Stress Index” (CWSI) has been used as the basis for irrigation scheduling for a number of crops in arid areas since the early nineteen eighties.
Unfortunately, although the standard CWSI method works in very arid climates, in many European situations the relatively high humidities and variation in windspeed and solar radiation can seriously limit the usefulness of the original approach.
We have shown that, in principle, the sensitivity of the approach can be greatly improved by comparing leaf temperature not with air temperature (as in the original CWSI) but with the temperature of model ‘leaves’ exposed within the canopy.

II International Symposium on Irrigation of Horticultural Crops

H.G. Jones, D. Aikman, T.A. McBurney

Infrared thermometry, irrigation scheduling radiation, stress index

https://doi.org/10.17660/ActaHortic.1997.449.37