This study was conducted to determine the potential evapotranspiration (PET) of maize, the crop coefficient (Kc) under full water requirement as well as the cause of decrease in maize yield. It was determined that the seasonal PET of maize is about 486.6 mm. The Kc under full water supply was found to be: 0.11, 0.35, 1.51 and 0.34 for initial, development, midseason and the late season stages r...

Efficient processing, handling, and storage of corn stover, a major crop‐based biomass, require an understanding of the moisture sorption thermodynamic properties of its fractions. Moisture sorption thermodynamic properties of the major corn stover fractions such as leaf, stalk skin, and stalk pith were determined, utilizing the static gravimetric sorption isotherms data in the temperature rang...

Soil moisture monitoring and characterization of the spatial and temporal variability of this hydrologic parameter at scales from small catchments to large river basins continues to receive much attention, reflecting its critical role in subsurface-land surface-atmospheric interactions and its importance to drought analysis, irrigation planning, crop yield forecasting, flood protection, and for...

India is agriculture based economy and sugarcane is one of the major crops produced in northern India. Productivity of sugarcane decreases due to inappropriate soil conditions and infections caused by various types of diseases ; timely and accurate disease diagnosis, plays an important role towards optimizing crop yield. This paper presents a system model for monitoring of sugarcane crop, the p...

Soil moisture at the plot or hill-slope scale is an important link between local vadose zone hydrology and catchment hydrology. However, so far only a few methods are on the way to close this gap between point measurements and remote sensing. One new measurement methodology that could determine integral soil moisture at this scale is the aboveground sensing of cosmic-ray neutrons, more precisel...

Plant responses to water deficit need to be monitored for producing a profitable crop as water deficit is a major constraint on crop yield. The objective of this study was to evaluate physiological responses of cotton (Gossypium hirsutum) to various environmental conditions under limited water availability using commercially available varieties grown in South Texas. Soil moisture and variables ...

Subsurface drip irrigation is defined as application of water below the soil surface through emitters, with discharge rates generally in the same range as surface drip irrigation. It has many advantages over surface drip. To see the response of subsurface drip irrigation on okra yield, a study was conducted at Indian Agricultural Research Institute, New Delhi, India during 2003 and 2004. Okra (...

Rainfall variability has a significant impact on crop production with manifestations in frequent crop failure in semiarid areas. This study used the parameterized APSIM crop model to investigate how rainfall variability may affect yields of improved sorghum varieties based on long-term historical rainfall and projected climate. Analyses of historical rainfall indicate a mix of nonsignificant an...

Soil moisture content is a parameter of major importance for land applications at both watershed and regional scale such as hydrology and agriculture. In the past, a vast number of experimental and theoretical studies relating radar measurements to soil and vegetation parameters have been conducted. Such studies have widely demonstrated the sensitivity of Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) measurem...

Jiangsu is an important agricultural province in China. Winter wheat, as the second major grain crop in the province, is greatly affected by moisture variations. The objective of this study was to investigate whether there were significant trends in changes in the moisture conditions during wheat growing seasons over the past decades and how the wheat yields responded to different moisture leve...