Recipient Organization
PRAIRIE VIEW A&M UNIVERSITY
P.O. Box 519, MS 2001
PRAIRIE VIEW,TX 77446
Performing Department
Research Centers
Non Technical Summary
Agricultural and urban landscape irrigation, including golf courses, uses a substantial portion of fresh water in Texas. Irrigation scheduling has been used to optimize water use efficiency. Despite their practical uses, irrigation scheduling methods are not as widely used as they could be. One of the main obstacles limiting their adaptation, especially computer software based irrigation scheduling methods, is that they are time consuming activities for busy farmers and landowners. Advances in real-time computing and widespread of smart devices present opportunities for water management scientists to develop user friendly irrigation scheduling software and mobile apps which calculate real-time plant water requirements based on real-time site specific rainfall, evapotranspiration, soil and plant growth data. The main goal of this project is to develop the IrrigWise mobile web app for irrigation scheduling that uses near real-time and forecasted weather data for a specific geographic location. The specific objectives of this project are to: i) develop applications to access: a) near real-time data of rainfall, ETo and their related parameters from different weather networks across Texas, b) forecasted weather data, and c) site specific soil hydrologic data, ii) develop, test, and validate the mobile web app, IrrigWise, to provide site specific real-time irrigation scheduling data for different crops under urban and agricultural production environments, iii) conduct trainings to demonstrate the use of IrrigWise App and iv) distribute IrrigWise and related publications to stakeholders. Following the user's selection of the location of interest, plant, and irrigation system, IrrigWise automatically selects the appropriate weather and soil hydrological data; then it calculates the selected plant specific irrigation requirements, and the start and duration of the next irrigation date using current and forecasted weather data. It's expected that this effort will contribute to an efficient water use in Texas.
Animal Health Component
50%
Research Effort Categories
Basic
10%
Applied
50%
Developmental
40%
Goals / Objectives
The main goal of this project is to improve irrigation water use efficiency through the development, testing, validation, and dissemination of the irrigation scheduling tool, IrrigWise mobile web app, which uses near real-time weather data (rainfall and Evapotranspiration, ETo), site specific soil hydrologic data, and crop specific crop coefficients under urban and agricultural production environmental conditions across Texas.The specific objectives of this work are to:develop web applications to access: i) near real-time data of rainfall, ETo and their related parameters from different weather networks across Texas, ii) forecasted weather data, and iii) site specific soil hydrologic data;develop, test, and validate a mobile web app, IrrigWise, to provide site specific near real-time irrigation scheduling data (when to irrigate and for how long) for different crops under urban and agricultural environments;conduct an outreach program, e.g. training sessions, livestream videos, and seminar presentations, to demonstrate the use of IrrigWise to different stakeholders; in addition, these outreach materials will be available through the college web site and disseminated in local, regional, and national meetings and scientific publications.
Project Methods
The methodologies proposed for each activity are listed for each objective.Objective I: IrrigWise, the irrigation scheduling tool will be developed as a mobile web app which will be accessible from any device that runs a browser unlike the native apps (e.g. iOS, Android etc.) which are tied to a specific operating system. This tool will either use the geographical coordinates of the mobile device or the user specified coordinates of the location of interest. Then, the user will select the crop of interest and the irrigation system used; based on the coordinate of the location, IrrigWise automatically selects the appropriate soil type of the selected location and generates site specific values for the weather data by interpolating the weather data from the nearest weather stations. Irrigation requirements will be calculated based on plant growth stage, soil type, irrigation system, and collected weather data.We will install six weather stations at six locations across Texas which are not covered by the existing public domain weather networks. We understand that the addition of six weather stations is not enough to achieve good coverage for Texas; however, this will help us to establish our own weather network which can be later expanded to cover larger areas across Texas. Three applications will be developed to retrieve i) the necessary weather related data needed (e.g., rainfall, Tmin, Tmax, net radiation, wind speed, and relative humidity), ii) forecasted weather parameters (e.g., rainfall, Tmin, Tmax), and iii) soil hydrologic parameters (water holding capacities for entire soil profile, hydrologic soil group). After an in-depth review of existing weather / ET networks which can be used for near real-time daily data of rainfall and ETo in Texas, we will develop an application to collect near real-time weather data. The near real-time daily data from all publically accessible stations will be retrieved from existing weather/ET networks and stored on our server on a daily bases. Some of these ET networks provide complete data needed to calculate ETo; however, other stations only provide limited weather data that does not allow to calculate ETo using standard ETo calculation equations, e.g. Penman-Monteith equation. Thus, we will use alternative methods, e.g., calibrated Hargreaves-Samani equation to calculate ETo based on daily Tmin and Tmax. Daily ETo and rainfall data collected from weather stations will be interpolated to produce ETo and rainfall data at the user's selected location.Another application will be developed to retrive forecasted daily Tmin and Tmax and Quantitative Forecast Grids (QPFs) from the National Weather Service. This application will provide forecasted rainfall and ETo for any location across the state based on its ZIP code or using its specific location coordinates (Long/Lat). Reference evapotranspiration will be estimated based on forecaseted Tmin and Tmax using calibrated Hargreaves-Samani equation. The third application will provide soil hydrological properties for any location in Texas based on its coordinates (Long/Lat). Texas' soil survey data will be collected from the SSURGO database; the soil hydrological data for all soil series will be extracted and a database will be developed using those information. Objective II: The IrrigWise mobile web app will integrate input data collected from three applications, user specified inputs, and crop data. Users will select the location(s) of interest, crop type, crop growth stage, and irrigation system. Following these user's selections, IrrigWise automatically selects the appropriate weather and soil hydrological data; then it calculates the selected plant specific irrigation requirements, and the start and duration of the next irrigation date using current and forecasted weather data.The proposed irrigation scheduling tool will use the water balance approach with a two-layer soil profile to simulate the irrigation water requirements for specific plants on a daily basis. The plant specific irrigation requirements are calculated based on the plant physiology, soil, irrigation system, growing season, weather data and basic irrigation management practice solving daily water balance equation of the soil column. The required irrigation water is expected to compensate the water needed to refill the soil profile in the rootzone to field capacity. Available water depletion values are determined based on the site specific soil hydrologic properties of the location of interest. The gross irrigation requirement accounts for irrigation system efficiencies.IrrigWise will be validated using data for different agricultural and landscape crops at different locations across Texas including data the project team will be collecting from the six locations across Texas.Objective III: The project web site will be launched to give up to date details on the project activities. IrrigWise App will be disseminated to different stakeholders through the project web site, during different training and demonstration activities and individually to interested parties. We will organize field days, workshops, and trainings sessions to different stakeholders across the state. During year 3, we will organize train-the-trainers workshops focusing on county agents and extension specialists. Additional series of workshops/trainings targeting agriculture and urban communities will also be given. We will publish different extension materials about IrrigWise App. We will present the output of our project in national conferences, meetings, and published peer-reviewed journal papers.