Naftali Lazarovitch

Subsurface Water Distribution from Drip Irrigation Described by Moment Analyses

Moment analysis techniques are used to describe spatial and temporal subsurface wetting patterns resulting from drip emitters. The water added is considered a ‘‘plume’’ with the zeroth moment representing the total volume of water applied. The first moments lead to the location of the center of the plume, and the second moments relate to the amount of spreading about the mean position. We tested this approach with numerically generated data for infiltration from surface and buried line and point sources in three contrasting soils. Ellipses (in two dimensions) or ellipsoids (in three dimensions) can be depicted about the center of the plume. Any fraction of water added can be related to a ‘‘probability’’ curve relating the size of the ellipse (or ellipsoid) that contains that amount of water. Remarkably, the probability curves are identical for all times and all of the contrasting soils. The consistency of the probability relationships can be exploited to pinpoint the extent of subsurface water for any fraction of the volume added. The new method can be immediately applied to the vital question of how many sensors are needed and where to install them to capture the overall water distribution under drip irrigation. For example, better agreement with the ‘‘exact’’ solution occurs with increasing the number of observation points from 6 to 9 and no significant improvement when increasing from 9 to 16. The method can also be applied to parameter estimation of soil hydraulic properties, which we uniquely reproduced for generated data. DESIGNING drip irrigation systems involves selection of an appropriate combination of emitter discharge rate and spacing between emitters for any given set of soil, crop, and climatic conditions, as well as understanding the wetted zone pattern around the emitter (Bresler, 1978; Lubana andNarda, 2001).Water distribution is affected by many factors, including soil hydraulic characteristics, initial conditions, emitter discharge rate, application frequency, root characteristics, evaporation, and transpiration. A traditional way to visualize spatial and temporal soil water distributions includes determination of the water content at points around the emitter and drawing contours between these points. Practical information includes estimation of the position and shape of thewetted volume (Dasberg andOr, 1999). Previous investigators have used descriptions of the extent of wetting, including the surface wetted diameter, wetted depth, and wetted volume (Ben-Asher et al., 1986; Schwartzman and Zur, 1986; Angelakis et al., 1993; Chu, 1994; Zur, 1996; Dasberg and Or, 1999; Hammami et al., 2002; Thorburn et al., 2003; Cook et al., 2003). The volume of the wetted soil represents the amount of soil water stored in the root zone. The domain of interest should be consistent with the anticipated depth of the root system, while its width is associated with the spacing between emitters and lines (Zur, 1996). A comprehensive method of characterizing spatial– temporal distributions is through moment analyses. This approach is widely used to describe solute transport in the vadose zone (e.g., Barry and Sposito, 1990; Toride and Leij, 1996; Srivastava et al., 2002). With respect to water, Yeh et al. (2005) and Ye et al. (2005) calculated the zeroth, first, and second moments of a three-dimensional water content plume and defined an ellipsoid that described the average shape and orientation of the plume for each observation period. This led to snapshots of the observed water content plume under transient flow conditions, which was used to derive a three-dimensional effective hydraulic conductivity tensor. The objective of this study was to implement moment analyses to describe subsurface water distribution resulting from drip irrigation and to test this approach with numerically generated data. This includes infiltration for both line and point sources in contrasting soils. The considerable advantages gained by the moment analyses over alternatives is detailed.

Numerical investigation of irrigation scheduling based on soil water status

Improving the sustainability of irrigation systems requires the optimization of operational parameters such as irrigation threshold and irrigation amount. Numerical modeling is a fast and accurate means to optimize such operational parameters. However, little work has been carried out to investigate the relationship between irrigation scheduling, irrigation threshold, and irrigation amount. Herein, we compare the results of HYDRUS 2D/3D simulations with experimental data from triggered drip irrigation, and optimize operational parameters. Two field experiments were conducted, one on loamy sand soil and one on sandy loam soil, to evaluate the overall effects of different potential transpiration rates and irrigation management strategies, on the triggered irrigation system. In both experiments, irrigation was controlled by a closed loop irrigation system linked to tensiometers. Collected experimental data were analyzed and compared with HYDRUS 2D/3D simulations. A system-dependant boundary condition, which initiates irrigation whenever the matric head at a predetermined location drops below a certain threshold, was implemented into the code. The experimental model was used to evaluate collected experimental data, and then to optimize the operational parameters for two hypothetical soils. The results show that HYDRUS 2D/3D predictions of irrigation events and matric heads are in good agreement with experimental data, and that the code can be used to optimize irrigation thresholds and water amounts applied in an irrigation episode to increase the efficiency of water use.

Drainage water reuse: biological, physical, and technological considerations for system management.

Previous reviews of drainage water reuse have discussed principles of water reuse and disposal; provided examples of reuse practices; offered reuse criteria for salinity, for trace elements, and for bacteria; discussed mitigation of dissolved trace elements in reuse strategies; and summarized the California experience with a focus on discussion of salinity, sodicity, B, Mo, and Se issues. This review emphasizes recent literature contributing to understanding physical and biological constraints to drainage water reuse. The potential for drip irrigation and, particularly, low-flow/high-frequency systems to enhance the use of drainage water while minimizing the deleterious effects on yield and on water and soil resources is examined using the numeric HYRDUS-2d model. Additionally, an analytical model is used to illustrate physical and biological limitations to drainage water management that result from the self-regulating nature of the soil-plant-water system. The models suggest that crop, soil, irrigation frequency, and delivery systems might be manipulated to reduce the quantity of drainage water, but they also suggest that the nature of the system may seriously constrain the amount of reduction that might be achieved.

Neuro-Drip: estimation of subsurface wetting patterns for drip irrigation using neural networks

Design of efficient drip irrigation systems requires information about the subsurface water distribution of added water during and after infiltration. Further, this information should be readily accessible to design engineers and practitioners. Neuro-Drip combines an artificial neural network (ANN) with a statistical description of the spatio-temporal distribution of the added water from a single drip emitter to provide easily accessible, rapid illustrations of the spatial and temporal subsurface wetting patterns. In this approach, the ANN is an approximator of a flow system. The ANN is trained using close to 1,000 numerical simulations of infiltration. Moment analysis is used to encapsulate the spatial distribution of water content. In practice, the user provides soil hydraulic properties and discharge rate; the ANN is then used to estimate the depth to the center of mass of the added water, and the vertical and radial spreading around the center of mass; finally, this statistical description of the added water is used to visualize the fate of the added water during and after the infiltration event.

Spatial and diurnal below canopy evaporation in a desert vineyard: Measurements and modeling

Evaporation from the soil surface (E) can be a significant source of water loss in arid areas. In sparsely vegetated systems, E is expected to be a function of soil, climate, irrigation regime, precipitation patterns, and plant canopy development and will therefore change dynamically at both daily and seasonal time scales. The objectives of this research were to quantify E in an isolated, drip-irrigated vineyard in an arid environment and to simulate below canopy E using the HYDRUS (2-D/3-D) model. Specific focus was on variations of E both temporally and spatially across the inter-row. Continuous above canopy measurements, made in a commercial vineyard, included evapotranspiration, solar radiation, air temperature and humidity, and wind speed and direction. Short-term intensive measurements below the canopy included actual and potential E and solar radiation along transects between adjacent vine-rows. Potential and actual E below the canopy were highly variable, both diurnally and with distance from the vine-row, as a result of shading and distinct wetted areas typical to drip irrigation. While the magnitude of actual E was mostly determined by soil water content, diurnal patterns depended strongly on position relative to the vine-row due to variable shading patterns. HYDRUS (2-D/3-D) successfully simulated the magnitude, diurnal patterns, and spatial distribution of E, including expected deviations as a result of variability in soil saturated hydraulic conductivity.

Root halotropism: salinity effects on Bassia indica root.

Abstract Plant roots are responsible for the acquisition of nutrients and water from the soil and have an important role in plant response to soil stress conditions. The direction of root growth is gravitropic in general. Gravitropic responses have been widely studied; however, studies about other root tropisms are scarce. Soil salinity is a major environmental response factor for plants, sensed by the roots and affecting the whole plant. Our observations on root architecture of Kochia (Bassia indica) indicated that salinity may cue tropism of part of the roots toward increasing salt concentrations. We termed this phenomenon “positive halotropism”. It was observed that Kochia individuals in the field developed horizontal roots, originating from the main tap root, which was growing toward saline regions in the soil. Under controlled conditions in greenhouse experiments, Kochia plants were grown in pots with artificial soil salinity gradients, achieved by irrigation with saline and fresh water. It was shown that plants grown in low‐salt areas developed a major horizontal root toward the higher salt concentration region in the gradient. In regions of high salinity and in the absence of a salinity gradient, roots grew vertically without a major horizontal root. The novel finding of “positive halotropism” is discussed.

Linking transpiration reduction to rhizosphere salinity using a 3D coupled soil-plant model

AimsSoil salinity can cause salt plant stress by reducing plant transpiration and yield due to very low osmotic potentials in the soil. For predicting this reduction, we present a simulation study to (i) identify a suitable functional form of the transpiration reduction function and (ii) to explain the different shapes of empirically observed reduction functions.MethodsWe used high resolution simulations with a model that couples 3D water flow and salt transport in the soil towards individual roots with flow in the root system.ResultsThe simulations demonstrated that the local total water potential at the soil-root interface, i.e. the sum of the matric and osmotic potentials, is for a given root system, uniquely and piecewise linearly related to the transpiration rate. Using bulk total water potentials, i.e. spatially and temporally averaged potentials in the soil around roots, sigmoid relations were obtained. Unlike for the local potentials, the sigmoid relations were non-unique functions of the total bulk potential but depended on the contribution of the bulk osmotic potential.ConclusionsTo a large extent, Transpiration reduction is controlled by water potentials at the soil-root interface. Since spatial gradients in water potentials around roots are different for osmotic and matric potentials, depending on the root density and on soil hydraulic properties, transpiration reduction functions in terms of bulk water potentials cannot be transferred to other conditions, i.e. soil type, salt content, root density, beyond the conditions for which they were derived. Such a transfer could be achieved by downscaling to the soil-root interface using simulations with a high resolution process model.

Paclobutrazol induces tolerance in tomato to deficit irrigation through diversified effects on plant morphology, physiology and metabolism

Dwindling water resources combined with meeting the demands for food security require maximizing water use efficiency (WUE) both in rainfed and irrigated agriculture. In this regard, deficit irrigation (DI), defined as the administration of water below full crop-water requirements (evapotranspiration), is a valuable practice to contain irrigation water use. In this study, the mechanism of paclobutrazol (Pbz)-mediated improvement in tolerance to water deficit in tomato was thoroughly investigated. Tomato plants were subjected to normal irrigated and deficit irrigated conditions plus Pbz application (0.8 and 1.6 ppm). A comprehensive morpho-physiological, metabolomics and molecular analysis was undertaken. Findings revealed that Pbz application reduced plant height, improved stem diameter and leaf number, altered root architecture, enhanced photosynthetic rates and WUE of tomato plants under deficit irrigation. Pbz differentially induced expression of genes and accumulation of metabolites of the tricarboxylic acid (TCA) cycle, γ-aminobutyric acid (GABA-shunt pathway), glutathione ascorbate (GSH-ASC)-cycle, cell wall and sugar metabolism, abscisic acid (ABA), spermidine (Spd) content and expression of an aquaporin (AP) protein under deficit irrigation. Our results suggest that Pbz application could significantly improve tolerance in tomato plants under limited water availability through selective changes in morpho-physiology and induction of stress-related molecular processes.

An artificial capillary barrier to improve root-zone conditions for horticultural crops: response of pepper, lettuce, melon, and tomato

Capillary barriers (CBs) occur at the interface between two soil layers having distinct differences in hydraulic characteristics. In preliminary work without growing crops, it was demonstrated that CBs implemented in sandy soils increased hydrostatic volumetric water content by 20–70%, depending on soil texture and depth of barrier insertion. We hypothesized that the introduction of an artificial CB at the lower root-zone boundary of horticultural crops can increase yields as a result of increased water content and uptake efficiency. The effects of introduced CBs on soil water content, plant growth, and yields of bell peppers (Capsicum annum L), lettuce (Lactuca sativa L), tomatoes (Lycopersicon esculantum L.), and melons (Cucumis melo L.) were studied in a desert environment in southern Israel. Inclusion of a CB increased soil water content by 60% and biomass and fruit yields by 25% for pepper, and increased matric head and biomass yield by 80 and 36%, respectively, for lettuce. Neither tomatoes nor melons reacted significantly to the presence of CBs, in spite of increased soil moisture. Daily soil matric head amplitude was reduced fivefold when lettuce was grown with a CB. Spatial variability was highly reduced when a CB was present. When peppers were grown with a CB, the standard deviations of water content and biomass yield were reduced by 40% relative to control.

Modelling the impact of drought and heat stress on common bean with two different photosynthesis model approaches

Extreme temperature and drought stress are major environmental factors limiting agriculture worldwide. A comprehensive understanding of plant behavior under different environmental conditions can be gained through experiments and through the application of biophysical crop models. This study presents a field experiment conducted with bean exposed to heat and drought stress. Based on an experimental data collection a crop model was set up, calibrated and validated. Hereby, the two different photosynthesis model approaches already implemented in the model, a simple empirical (the Goudriaan and van Laar or GvL model) and a biochemical photosynthesis model approach (the Farquhar-Ball-Collatz or FBC model), were tested. Both photosynthesis model approaches performed adequately under no stress conditions. Under heat stress conditions, yield was underestimated by both models. However, the FBC model performed better than the simpler photosynthesis model approach of the GvL model. The FBC crop model was able to predict the soil water dynamics, the plant growth and the stomatal conductance. We tested two different photosynthesis model approaches implemented in a biophysical crop model.A comprehensive experimental data collection was used to set up, calibrate and validate the crop model.The effect of the photosynthesis model choice was evaluated with multiple model runs based on observed data testing several feasible growth and climatic conditions.The application of the Farquhar-Ball-Collatz model implemented in a field-scale crop model is recommended for drought and heat stress simulation studies.