PEAR CROP COEFFICIENTS OBTAINED IN A LARGE WEIGHING LYSIMETER

Hourly pear water consumption (ETc) was determined with a large weighing lysimeter during 2002. The lysimeter was located in the middle of a 4000 m² pear plot and it contained 3 adult pear trees (cv. ‘Conference’), spaced at 4 m x 1.6 m.
The Lysimeter container had a cross sectional area of 9.5 m² and a depth of 1.65 m (minimum). Weight was determined by means of 4 load cells with an individual capacity of 15 t, which gave to the lysimeter a total weight capacity of 60 t.
The weighing sensitivity was 0.5 kg what produced a lysimeter sensitivity of 0.053 mm.
ETo was determined from an automatic weather station adjacent to the lysimeter, and pear crop coefficients were determined as a ETc/ETo ratio.
Tree intercepted radiation (LI) was weekly determined at solar noon by using a Ceptometer and correlated to the determined Kc.
LI and Kc resulted strongly correlated, indicating the potential capacity of LI to be used for estimating Kc values in pear orchards.

IV International Symposium on Irrigation of Horticultural Crops

J. Girona, J. Marsal, M. Mata, J. del Campo

Evapotranspiration, light interception, palmette, canopy cover, ETc, ETo

https://doi.org/10.17660/ActaHortic.2004.664.33