Crop coefficients for winter wheat in a sub-humid climate regime

TY - JOUR

T1 - Crop coefficients for winter wheat in a sub-humid climate regime

AU - Kjærsgaard, Jeppe Hvelplund

AU - Plauborg, Finn

AU - Mollerup, Mikkel

AU - Petersen, Jens Carsten Tilbæk

AU - Hansen, Søren

PY - 2008

Y1 - 2008

N2 - Estimations of evapotranspiration (ET) from natural surfaces are used in a large number of applications such as agricultural water management and water resources planning. Lack of reliable, cheap and easy-to-use instruments, associated with the chaotic and varying nature of the meteorological and plant physiological factors influencing ET cause these estimations to be based on calculated values rather than the measured ones. The two-step approach where ET from a reference crop is calculated and multiplied by empirical crop coefficients to obtain ET from a crop has gained wide acceptance. Daily coefficients for a winter wheat crop growing under standard conditions, i.e. not short of water and growing under optimal agronomic conditions, were estimated for a cold sub-humid climate regime. One of the two methods used to estimate ET from a reference crop required net radiation (Rn) as input. Two sets of coefficients were used for calculating Rn. Weather data from a meteorological station was used to estimate Rn and ET from the reference crop. The winter wheat ET was measured using an eddy covariance system during the main parts of the growing seasons 2004 and 2005. The meteorological data and field measurements were quality controlled and discarded from the analysis if flagged for errors. Daily values of ET from the reference crop and winter wheat calculated from hourly values were used to calculate the crop coefficients. Average daily crop coefficients were in the 1.1-1.15 range during mid-season with standard deviations ranging from 0.13 to 0.23 for both years. These values exceed values used in some sub-humid climate regime studies, but agree well with values from the international literature.

AB - Estimations of evapotranspiration (ET) from natural surfaces are used in a large number of applications such as agricultural water management and water resources planning. Lack of reliable, cheap and easy-to-use instruments, associated with the chaotic and varying nature of the meteorological and plant physiological factors influencing ET cause these estimations to be based on calculated values rather than the measured ones. The two-step approach where ET from a reference crop is calculated and multiplied by empirical crop coefficients to obtain ET from a crop has gained wide acceptance. Daily coefficients for a winter wheat crop growing under standard conditions, i.e. not short of water and growing under optimal agronomic conditions, were estimated for a cold sub-humid climate regime. One of the two methods used to estimate ET from a reference crop required net radiation (Rn) as input. Two sets of coefficients were used for calculating Rn. Weather data from a meteorological station was used to estimate Rn and ET from the reference crop. The winter wheat ET was measured using an eddy covariance system during the main parts of the growing seasons 2004 and 2005. The meteorological data and field measurements were quality controlled and discarded from the analysis if flagged for errors. Daily values of ET from the reference crop and winter wheat calculated from hourly values were used to calculate the crop coefficients. Average daily crop coefficients were in the 1.1-1.15 range during mid-season with standard deviations ranging from 0.13 to 0.23 for both years. These values exceed values used in some sub-humid climate regime studies, but agree well with values from the international literature.

KW - Former LIFE faculty

KW - Reference evapotranspiration

KW - Net radiation

KW - Eddy covariance

KW - Crop evapotranspiration

KW - Crop coefficients

U2 - 10.1016/j.agwat.2008.03.004

DO - 10.1016/j.agwat.2008.03.004

M3 - Journal article

SN - 0378-3774

VL - 95

SP - 918

EP - 924

JO - Agricultural Water Management

JF - Agricultural Water Management

IS - 8

ER -