Articles
Testing of a blueberry irrigation scheduling smartphone app in Florida, USA
Article number
1409_35
Pages
267 – 274
Language
English
Abstract
Blueberry is an economically important crop in Florida, USA, due to favorable growing conditions and cultivars that allow fresh market availability when other locations in the USA have later production.
However, blueberry requires careful irrigation management to not waste water and to yield peak production and quality.
Florida soils in blueberry production areas are sandy (>90% sand sized particles) and in combination with pine bark incorporation into beds, water holding capacities <10% volumetric water content are common.
A smartphone irrigation scheduling app has been developed for blueberry.
This app utilizes publicly available weather networks to utilize temperature, relative humidity, wind speed, solar radiation, reference ET (ETo), and precipitation.
These weather variables use ETo directly or compute ETo to access in a soil water balance to generate a recommended irrigation schedule.
Inputs to the app include horticultural details of the field, soil type, location, selection of weather stations or networks and preferences for irrigation days of the week.
Crop coefficient values for blueberry are embedded within the app.
The app was tested in a research field in comparison to three ETo replacement fractions, 0.33*ETo, 0.67*ETo and 1.0*ETo. The app matched irrigation amount most closely with the 0.67*ETo treatment.
Future development opportunities for the app include integration of private weather stations used by growers to enhance representativeness of rainfall for individual growers.
Testing of the app with multiple blueberry cultivars and in different parts of their development has also been identified as research opportunity.
However, blueberry requires careful irrigation management to not waste water and to yield peak production and quality.
Florida soils in blueberry production areas are sandy (>90% sand sized particles) and in combination with pine bark incorporation into beds, water holding capacities <10% volumetric water content are common.
A smartphone irrigation scheduling app has been developed for blueberry.
This app utilizes publicly available weather networks to utilize temperature, relative humidity, wind speed, solar radiation, reference ET (ETo), and precipitation.
These weather variables use ETo directly or compute ETo to access in a soil water balance to generate a recommended irrigation schedule.
Inputs to the app include horticultural details of the field, soil type, location, selection of weather stations or networks and preferences for irrigation days of the week.
Crop coefficient values for blueberry are embedded within the app.
The app was tested in a research field in comparison to three ETo replacement fractions, 0.33*ETo, 0.67*ETo and 1.0*ETo. The app matched irrigation amount most closely with the 0.67*ETo treatment.
Future development opportunities for the app include integration of private weather stations used by growers to enhance representativeness of rainfall for individual growers.
Testing of the app with multiple blueberry cultivars and in different parts of their development has also been identified as research opportunity.
Authors
M.D. Dukes, B. Cardenas, M. Zamora Re, J. Williamson
Keywords
crop coefficient, evapotranspiration, ET, Kc
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