The new year brings some success in research funding. Recently, a project led by Dr. Shmulik Friedman from the Institute of Soil, Water and Environmental Science was selected for funding by the Ministry of Agriculture chief scientist.
So far, the daily irrigation dose of the spring-summer field crops in the model farm (and in general) has been determined according to the potential evaporation and the crop coefficients of the Extension Services of the Ministry of Agriculture, which do not directly take into account the availability of water in the soil profile (characterized as clayey and of a high water retention). In Newe Ya’ar there is about 600 mm of rain in the winter and during the growing season, which starts in the spring and ends in the summer, the depth of the groundwater table in the field crops crop is approximately between 1 and 2 meters. Under these conditions, it is likely that a significant and unknown part of the crops’ water consumption is from the winter rains and the shallow groundwater, in addition to the irrigation water consumption. In the approved research project, we will try to develop a method for estimating the amount of irrigation needed to complete the desired water consumption (based on the DIDAS approach, https://app.agri.gov.il/didas/) according to the water tension at the depth of the soil profile below the root zone, the water conduction and retention properties of the soil, the depth of the root systems and the density of the drippers.
Simultaneously with the development of the new method for determining the daily irrigation dose, we will characterize the water content, salinity and aeration (oxygen concentrations) regimes of the soil in spring-summer field crops after the rainy season in heavy soils and the effect of service crops and the addition of semi-stabilized manure or compost on these regimes.
