New Smartphone App For Cotton Irrigation Management

The SmartIrrigation Cotton App is an interactive tool that can assist growers with making management decisions regarding irrigation of their cotton crop.  It uses meteorological data, soil parameters, crop growth stage, crop coefficients, measured rainfall, and irrigation applications.  It will then provide an estimate of root zone soil water deficits in terms of inches of water and percent of total moisture.

 The model does not deliver irrigation application recommendations. However, the user can utilize the root zone soil water deficit information to make appropriate irrigation decisions. The Cotton App provides notifications to the user when actions such as irrigation are needed.

For example, the Cotton App sends the user a notification when the root zone plant available soil water deficit exceeds 50% of plant available soil water indicating that irrigation is recommended. UGA Agricultural Engineer, Dr. Georgia Vellidis and his team evaluated the App during 2012 and 2013 in replicated plot experiments and in commercial fields. The App predictions matched field observations reasonably well.

Source:uga.edu