Predicting soil moisture conditions for arable free draining soils in Ireland under spring cereal crop production
Year: 2010
Type: other
Abstract: Temporal prediction of soil moisture and evapotranspiration has a crucial role in\nagricultural and environmental management. A lack of Irish models for predicting\nevapotranspiration and soil moisture conditions for arable soils still represents\na knowledge gap in this particular area of Irish agro-climatic modelling. The soil\nmoisture deficit (SMD) crop model presented in this paper is based on the SMD\nhybrid model for Irish grassland (Schulte et al., 2005). Crop and site specific components\n(free-draining soil) have been integrated in the new model, which was calibrated and tested using soil tension measurements from two experimental sites located on a well-drained soil under spring barley cultivation in south-eastern Ireland. Calibration of the model gave an R2 of 0.71 for the relationship between predicted SMD and measured soil tension, while model testing yielded R2 values of 0.67 and 0.65 (two sites). The crop model presented here is designed to predict soil moisture conditions and effective drainage (i.e., leaching events). The model provided reasonable predictions of soil moisture conditions and effective drainage within its boundaries, i.e., free-draining land used for spring cereal production under Irish conditions. In general, the model is simple and practical due to the small number of required input parameters, and due to model outputs that have good practical applicability, such as for computing the cumulative amount of watersoluble\nnutrients leached from arable land under spring cereals in free-draining\nsoils.
Institution: Trinity College Dublin
Language: English
Topic: Soil and Unsaturated Flow
Subfield: Civil and Structural Engineering
Field: Engineering
Domain: Physical Sciences
SDG: Zero hunger
Open Access status: green
Funder: Teagasc
OpenAlex ID: W2122495834