Water Application Efficiency and Adequacy of ET-Basedand Soil Moisture–Based Irrigation Controllers for Turfgrass Irrigation

Autor: Daniel C. Bowman, R. L. Huffman, Garry L. Grabow, A. Vasanth, Grady L. Miller, Ihab E. Ghali
Rok vydání: 2013
Předmět:
Zdroj: Journal of Irrigation and Drainage Engineering. 139:113-123
ISSN: 1943-4774
0733-9437
DOI: 10.1061/(asce)ir.1943-4774.0000528
Popis: Increasing competition for water and the desire for high-quality turfgrass require sound irrigation water management. The main objective of this study was to evaluate two types of commercially available irrigation control technologies: one based on evapotranspiration (ET) estimates and the other based on feedback from a soil-moisture sensor (SMS). Irrigation treatments were combinations of controller technology: a timer-based standard controller system (TIM), an add-on (1 set point) SMS system (SMS1), and an evapotranspiration (ET)-based system (ETB), and watering frequency: weekly, twice per week, and daily (1, 2, and 7 days per week, respectively) plus a 10th treatment of an on-demand (2 set point) SMS system (SMS2). Both irrigation efficiency and adequacy were best for the SMS2 treatment when averaged over all three years. The SMS1 treatment provided good irrigation efficiency, but irrigation adequacy suffered, most noticeably with the twice per week treatment. The ET treatment provided good i...
Databáze: OpenAIRE