Development of decision support system based on crop water demand and soil moisture deficit for real time irrigation scheduling

An automated irrigation system has a potential solution to control the site specific irrigation, is of benefits to producers can save water and improving water productivity. The study was conducted to develop a decision support system (DSS) and integrated with soil moisture sensor based on tensiometric principle, for real time irrigation scheduling either on time basis or soil moisture sensor basis. The designed system was successfully tested on potato crop under different methods of irrigation at Precision Farming Development Centre (PFDC), IARI, New Delhi, India. The reference evapotranspiration, water requirement of potato crop estimated from DSS was verified and tested with CROPWAT model, and approximately similar results were obtained. The crop evapotranspiration of potato crop was estimated 25.3 cm using DSS. The coefficient of determination (R-2) range was found 0.93-0.94, 0.82-0.91 between water level depletion in modified tensiometer and soil water suction measured by tensiometer, watermark at 20 cm, 30 cm soil depth respectively. The performance evaluation of developed system helped to control water application as per crop needs with its various functionality were found satisfactorily.