Biological Systems Engineering

 

Date of this Version

10-12-2007

Citation

An ASABE Section Meeting Presentation, Paper Number: RRV-07132.

Comments

Copyright by the authors. Used by permission.

Abstract

Water is becoming an increasingly valuable commodity with shortages and water rationing more commonplace. Since irrigation is the largest consumptive use of water in South Dakota, accounting for over 70% of the water withdrawals, irrigation water management is critical to make the best use of the water available. This project uses the CERES-Maize cropping system model (available in DSSAT v4) to study the impact of various irrigation management strategies on corn production. SDSU management software developed by Oswald (2006) is used to simulate a center pivot for specific locations and years. Weather data from several sites in the Great Plains together with soil, crop, and irrigation inputs are used in the modeling. The objective of this paper is to demonstrate a low-cost and low-time method (compared to field testing) for evaluating irrigation strategies for limited water scenarios. When the pivot simulator and crop model were integrated, differences in ET calculations resulted in different soil water balances. When the method is modified such that water balances in the SDSU management software and DSSAT are similar, this may be a valuable tool for irrigation management research.

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