TY  - JOUR
AU  - Janssens, Pieter
AU  - Diels, Jan
AU  - Vanderborght, Jan
AU  - Elsen, Frank
AU  - Elsen, Annemie
AU  - Deckers, Tom
AU  - Vandendriessche, Hilde
TI  - Numerical calculation of soil water potential in an irrigated ‘conference’ pear orchard
JO  - Agricultural water management
VL  - 148
SN  - 0378-3774
CY  - Amsterdam
PB  - Elsevier
M1  - FZJ-2015-01769
SP  - 113 - 122
PY  - 2015
AB  - Irrigation in Belgian ‘Conference’ pear orchards is often managed by soil water potential (Ψsoil) sensors. The most widespread sensor among fruit growers in Belgium is the Watermark sensor (Irrometer Co., USA). To gain better insight into the use of the Watermark soil sensor for irrigation scheduling in pear orchards the water extraction pattern of the ‘Conference’ pear trees was acquired by a numerical calculation of Ψsoil in three experimental plots. A reasonable accordance between calculated and measured Ψsoil was observed with R2 = 0.56 and RMSE = 13.4 kPa over 1320 observations. Furthermore the sensitivity of the numerical calculation to the selected root distribution was shown. The Ψsoil calculation with the root distribution parameterized by site specific fine root length observations gave satisfactory results for all plots, in contrast to Ψsoil calculation based on other root distributions.
LB  - PUB:(DE-HGF)16
UR  - <Go to ISI:>//WOS:000346541500013
DO  - DOI:10.1016/j.agwat.2014.09.023
UR  - https://juser.fz-juelich.de/record/188371
ER  -