Nitrogen and water application rates and timing depend on the final yield a grower expects the potato crop to achieve. Therefore precise measurements of 1) the nitrogen status of the crop and 2) the water status of the soil are needed. A crop growth model LINTUL-Potato calculates yields and the associated resource requirements based on the temperature dependent length of the growing season, the...

Increases in the severity and frequency of drought in a warming climate may negatively impact agricultural production and food security. Unlike previous studies that have estimated agricultural impacts of climate condition using single-crop yield distributions, we develop a multivariate probabilistic model that uses projected climatic conditions (e.g., precipitation amount or soil moisture) thr...

Crop coefficient curves provide simple, reproducible means to estimate crop evapotranspiration (ET) from weather-based reference ET values. The dual crop coefficient sKcd method of the Food and Agricultural Organization of the United States (FAO) Irrigation and Drainage Paper No. 56 (FAO-56) is intended to improve daily simulation of crop ET by considering separately the contribution of evapora...

Satellite-derived vegetation indices extracted over locations representative of midwestern U.S. cropland and forest for the period 1990–94 are analyzed to determine the sensitivity of the indices to neutron probe soil moisture measurements of the Illinois Climate Network (ICN). The deseasoned (i.e., departures from multiyear mean annual cycle) soil moisture measurements are shown to be weakly c...

Due to the limited availability of Root-Zone Soil Moisture (RZSM) information at regional scale, this paper explores use thermal infrared remote sensing estimate RZSM in agricultural fields. This study presents Crop Water Stress Index (CWSI) derived from data used as an indicator root zone soil moisture. Theoretical limits were calculated using canopy and air temperature difference, which is re...

Biomass of legumes grown as catch crops improves soil properties and thus soil conditions for following crops. The aim of this study was to evaluate the effect of field pea (Pisum sativum L.) grown as a catch crop and used for green manure on soil properties and yielding of spring barley (Hordeum vulgare L.). Field experiments were conducted in 2008-2011 in the randomized block design with ...

This paper reports the passive microwave radiometry application for regional assessment of crop growth in India. Brightness temperature (TB) of various vegetation classes observed at 37 GHz using special sensor microwave imager (SSMI) data. during Kharif season in 1 999 in India are analyzed. Vertical as well as hQrizontal polarization brightness temperature is used to derive microwave polariza...

Remote sensing and crop growth models have enhanced our ability to understand soil water balance in irrigated agriculture. However, limited efforts have been made to adopt data assimilation methodologies in these linked models that use stochastic parameter estimation with genetic algorithm (GA) to improve irrigation scheduling. In this study, an innovative irrigation scheduling technique, based...