Project Number: 6402-12130-001-00
Project Type: Appropriated

Start Date: Mar 14, 2003
End Date: Feb 28, 2008

Objective:
Incorporate and adapt decision support tools of soil and plant water needs for humid growing conditions and develop improved irrigation scheduling guidelines to optimize the rates and timing of irrigation applications and improve crop productivity. Develop improved water management technologies by improving drainage and soil quality, and by designing alternate sprinkler, surface, and precision irrigation practices and strategies to improve crop productivity and quality, irrigation use efficiency and application efficiency. Design improved crop production systems for the Mid-South that optimize yield and quality, improve water, fertilizer and pesticide management, and reduce within-field variability by incorporating precision technologies as well as the advances in irrigation scheduling and application from the previous two objectives. Implement improved cropping systems in a production setting, and test their economic impact.

Approach:
The research is designed to explore crop production at several levels of abstraction, from the level of leaf physiological performance to biophysical changes at the canopy scale. Insight into the nature of individual parameters and their influence on crop production will be gained through focused experiments in research plots. Results obtained from these small-scale experiments will be coupled with information gained from the large-scale and production fields to develop an integrated view of crop production. The research will explore the physiological responses to drought, and adapt and expand existing models of crop water use into irrigation scheduling methods, calibrated with evapotranspiration measurements from our area. Irrigation guidelines for alternate production systems will be determined in large plot experiments. The physical environment of the soil, its dependence on management (tillage and cover crops), and its impact on soil moisture and need for supplemental irrigation will be determined. Remote detection methods for indicating crop water status that are amenable to adaptation in a production setting will be explored, and used in concert with irrigation scheduling guidelines and observations of spatial variability to develop site-specific irrigation guidelines. Research in progress will continue to develop production systems for cotton in controlled large field plots. Advances in management inputs, and the economic impact of various production practices will be tested in a production setting. The projects will be linked through their exploration and expansion of knowledge at various levels within the crop canopy. The entire picture of crop production will be integrated in the delivery of technology and the implementation of the results in the production setting.

Project Team

Sassenrath, Gretchen Fisher, Daniel Hanks, James Thomson, Steven - Steve Williford, Julius - Ray

Project Annual Reports

FY 2003

Related National Programs

Water Quality & Management (201)   Integrated Farming Systems (207)

Related Projects

Deep Tillage Requirements in Irrigated Cotton Production Systems    Imaging Systems and Analytical Tools for Remote Detection of Crop Physiological Status and Potential Insect Predation