Automated irrigation scheduling application of the north dakota agricultural weather network

Abstract

During the last 30 years, the development of agricultural weather networks and other technologies have made scientific irrigation scheduling much easier to apply and use. However, at the present time the most frequent complaints by irrigators about scientific irrigation scheduling is that it has a steep learning curve, takes too much time to gather all the bits of information and they just don't have the time during the growing season. To address these concerns a site-specific irrigation scheduling program, accessible through the North Dakota Agricultural Weather Network (NDAWN)1 website, was developed. The irrigation scheduling application has become one of the most popular agricultural applications on the NDAWN website (http://ndawn.ndsu.nodak.edu). It is designed to increase proficiency in water usage of irrigators by calculating site-specific water deficiency in soil. The soil-water deficiency is calculated based on a selected field and the growth stage of a selected crop. The application interfaces with a Geographic Information System (GIS)2to select a specific field and thus obtain the geographic coordinates for the soil types and soil water holding capacity in the field. It also interfaces with the nearest NDAWN automated weather station to obtain meteorological information to automatically calculate crop water requirements on a daily basis of the crop in the selected field. The output is the daily checks and balances of the soil-water deficiency for the selected field.