

The main advantage of the citrus app is that it provides ET-based irrigation schedules without the need for investment in sensors or weather stations. The citrus irrigation app ( ) can be downloaded as Smartirrigation Citrus for both iOS and Android. The FAWN irrigation scheduler can be found at. This means the users add the grove tree and emitter data for the initial setup, and then the app will store the setup for future schedules. However, in the citrus app, users can save their field setup for future scheduling. In general, the FAWN website and citrus irrigation app have similar features. Initial information required prior to using the app includes tree row distance and emitter characteristics. Users can select the nearest weather station available and their soil type from the FAWN database to schedule irrigation. These tools make ET irrigation scheduling practical for growers without the need to collect data or make complicated calculations. īoth the FAWN website and the UF/IFAS citrus app are user-friendly tools to schedule irrigation. More information on data sources can be found at. One of the disadvantages of the ET method is that the irrigation manager is required to collect data from multiple sources and calculate the irrigation requirements. A step-by-step guide on ET-based irrigation scheduling can be found at. This method could provide initial insights on the irrigation requirements, but it requires the irrigation manager to perform some initial calculations. The main advantage of this method is that it can be implemented with minimal or zero investment using field weather stations or the data from FAWN. Irrigation scheduling is performed using the water balance method (water in from rain, irrigation or water table rise minus water out, in this case ET). In order to determine the irrigation amount and frequency based on daily evapotranspiration (ET), the irrigation manager needs weather information that can be obtained from the University of Florida Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences (UF/IFAS) Florida Automated Weather Network (FAWN, ) or a weather station installed in the field.
#UF SURVEY RESEARCH CENTER SCHEDULER PLUS#
A crop coefficient, which is related to the water requirements based on the tree phenological stage, plus the soil and weather characteristics are used. The theory behind irrigation scheduling based on evapotranspiration relies on the replenishment of water evaporated from the soil surface and the water used by the tree. The main advantages and disadvantages of each method are covered, and suggestions are provided in terms of practical solutions for field applications. This article provides an overview of irrigation scheduling methods for micro-irrigation systems, which includes both microsprinkler and drip irrigation. The more accurately the irrigation system applies water, the more water savings are achieved. These methods can provide different water requirement estimates based on environmental variables, plant uptake or water content in the soil.Īlthough each method can provide good irrigation estimates, some of them are more precise than others. For citrus, there are multiple options to schedule irrigation, including evapotranspiration-, plant- and soil-based methods. Irrigation scheduling has been one of the most important management practices to improve crop production. (Source: Ferrarezi et al., 2020)īy Sandra M. Soil moisture sensor types from different manufacturers include frequency domain reflectometry (1-4), transmission line oscillation (5-7), time domain reflectometry (8-11) and time domain transmissometry (12).
