TY  - JOUR
AU  - Brogi, Cosimo
AU  - Pisinaras, Vassilios
AU  - Köhli, Markus
AU  - Dombrowski, Olga
AU  - Hendricks Franssen, Harrie-Jan
AU  - Babakos, Konstantinos
AU  - Chatzi, Anna
AU  - Panagopoulos, Andreas
AU  - Bogena, Heye Reemt
TI  - Monitoring Irrigation in Small Orchards with Cosmic-Ray Neutron Sensors
JO  - Sensors
VL  - 23
IS  - 5
SN  - 1424-8220
CY  - Basel
PB  - MDPI
M1  - FZJ-2023-01364
SP  - 2378
PY  - 2023
AB  - Due to their unique characteristics, cosmic-ray neutron sensors (CRNSs) have potential inmonitoring and informing irrigation management, and thus optimising the use of water resources inagriculture. However, practical methods to monitor small, irrigated fields with CRNSs are currentlynot available and the challenges of targeting areas smaller than the CRNS sensing volume are mostlyunaddressed. In this study, CRNSs are used to continuously monitor soil moisture (SM) dynamics intwo irrigated apple orchards (Agia, Greece) of ~1.2 ha. The CRNS-derived SM was compared to areference SM obtained by weighting a dense sensor network. In the 2021 irrigation period, CRNSscould only capture the timing of irrigation events, and an ad hoc calibration resulted in improvementsonly in the hours before irrigation (RMSE between 0.020 and 0.035). In 2022, a correction based onneutron transport simulations, and on SM measurements from a non-irrigated location, was tested.In the nearby irrigated field, the proposed correction improved the CRNS-derived SM (from 0.052to 0.031 RMSE) and, most importantly, allowed for monitoring the magnitude of SM dynamics thatare due to irrigation. The results are a step forward in using CRNSs as a decision support system inirrigation management.
LB  - PUB:(DE-HGF)16
C6  - 36904581
UR  - <Go to ISI:>//WOS:000947410600001
DO  - DOI:10.3390/s23052378
UR  - https://juser.fz-juelich.de/record/1005195
ER  -