Determination of Crop Water Stress Index for Irrigation Scheduling of Turfgrass (Cynodon dactylon L. Pers.) under Drought Conditions

Abstract The crop water stress index (CWSI) is a valuable tool for monitoring and quantifying water stress as well as for irrigation scheduling. A field experiment was conducted during spring and summer 2012 at Research Station of College of Agriculture and Natural Resources of Darab, Shiraz University, Iran, to determine CWSI of  turfgrass for irrigation scheduling. Four levels of water regimes including well watered [Irrigation according to 100% field capacity (FC)], mild drought stress (75% FC), severe drought (50% FC), and most severe drought (25% FC) stress were arranged in a randomized complete block design with four replicateions. The highest monthly average value of CWSI for all treatments was reached in August and decreased in September slightly. In all treatments the CWSI values showed an increasing trend from June (0.097 in well watered treatment) to August (0.684 under most severe drought) as a result of higher vapor pressure deficit values and negatively increase in Tc-Ta differential. Also, significant differences were observed between mean CWSI values of well watered and mild drought, with severe drought and most severe drought treatments. The color grading number for mild drought treatment in turfgrass decreased sharply from 8 to 4 at the start of the experiment in July, and remained constant (3) for August and September. The amounts of irrigation water more than 75% FC did not affect visual quality of turfgrass, which appeared to be sufficient to fulfill an acceptable turfgrass quality. A negative relationship was found between CWSI with water applied and color quality under different irrigation regimes. It appeared that under arid and semi-arid conditions, such as southern Iran, where the amount of water is a major limiting factor, the amount of applied water could be lowered to 75% FC without any loss in visual quality of turfgrass with the seasonal CWSI being kept about 0.15.