Sensors and Approaches To Measure Crop and Soil Factors to Perform Variable Rate Water Management.

Irrigation of many crops is challenged to optimize both yields and quality. Likely, best management practices for crop irrigation of several species depend on the ability to maintain mild to moderate levels of water stress during the growing season. Others, require to maintain non-stress condintions all along the season. Natural geographical variability can lead to variable stress levels in different parts of the field, resulting in variability in quality of the yield. This can be prevented by precision irrigation, e.g., at the tree level. The ability to monitor water status levels at the tree level is the first step towards precision irrigation. In this presentation sensors and approaches to measure crop and soil factors to perform variable rate water management will be presented. These will include thermal methods and procedures to exploit thermal imaging technology to estimate crop water stress, and map its variabiity in the field.