Comportamento da umidade do solo detrminada por métodos expeditos

Abstract

The knowledge of soil moisture is quite important because it indicates soil hydric conditions and it can help on saving water and electric energy, given that monitoring of soil moisture allows controlled and timely applications of water pointing out how much and when to irrigate, according to the crop water requirements. Therefore, soil moisture should be determined before the irrigation and will serve as a parameter for the amount of water to be applied by the system. There are any methods used for determination of soil water content, in this way, the present study aimed to compare the results of soil moisture obtained by different methods for expeditious determination of the water content of the soil in different textural classes. The study was conducted in the Laboratório de Hidráulica Agrícola da Universidade Federal de Santa Maria . Four methods were tested (standard method, M0; electric oven method, M1, microwave oven method, M2; weighing method, M3) with three soil samples (S1, S2, S3) and three repetitions for each. The linear regression was made between the standard method and alternative methods, for obtaining the correlation coefficient (r), the linear coefficient and the slope, the Wilmott concordance index (Iw) and Performance Index (Id). From the results obtained can be stated that the electric oven method and the microwave oven method have excellent performance when compared to the standard method. The method of weighing presented a performance good and very good. In addition, it was concluded that the 20 minutes period for the electric oven method was efficient signifying a time reduction for the moisture content determination. For the microwave oven method the 5 minute drying period was sufficient and did not differ statistically from the standard method. The method of weighing was also reliable in determining soil moisture. Therefore, it is possible to use alternative methods to determine the soil moisture.