Grant, Olga M., Davies, Michael J., Longbottom, Helen and Atkinson, Christopher J. (2008) Irrigation scheduling and irrigation systems: optimising irrigation efficiency for container ornamental shrubs. Irrigation Science, 27 (2). pp. 139-153. ISSN 0342-7188 (Print), 1432-1319 (Online) (doi:https://doi.org/10.1007/s00271-008-0128-x)

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Abstract

Water use and plant growth and quality were compared across different nursery stock beds, different methods of applying irrigation, and different methods of scheduling irrigation. With overhead irrigation, scheduling of irrigation according to plant demand, along with an irrigation system designed to maximise irrigation uniformity, resulted in substantial water savings, without reducing plant quality. This was the case in both wet and dry years. In the dry year, plant quality was particularly good when grown on a sub-irrigated sand bed; this system also used less water than any of the overhead irrigation systems. Two different systems were effective in scheduling overhead irrigation, one based on the volumetric moisture in the growing substrate, and the other based on plant evapotranspiration. The latter was determined with a small sensor with wet and dry artificial “leaves”, the output of which correlated with that obtained following the Penman–Monteith method based on a full set of meteorological data.

Item Type:	Article
Uncontrolled Keywords:	Hardy nursery stock, Irrigation application, Plant quality, Evapotranspiration, ETp, Soil moisture content
Faculty / School / Research Centre / Research Group:	Faculty of Engineering & Science
Last Modified:	17 Oct 2016 08:06
URI:	http://gala.gre.ac.uk/id/eprint/12479

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