Balanço hídrico do solo e partição da evapotranspiração de soja, milho e feijão submetidos à irrigação deficitária no Sul do Brasil

Abstract

In order to overcome periods of drought and low water availability, deficit irrigation becomes an important tool as long as it is applied on the least sensitive periods of the crops development to reduce the impacts on the productivity. Furthermore, deficit irrigation can be most efficient when there is an understanding of the way plants lose water. Crop evapotranspiration (ETc) is divided into soil evaporation (Es) and crop transpiration (Tc). The objectives of this paper were, beside measuring the soil water balance for different crops (bean, soybean and maize), was to determine adequate crop base coefficients (Kcb) for southern Brazil conditions, partition ETc into Es and Tc to better evaluate and understand soil water dynamics along the crops development cycle, determine water productivity (WP) considering different levels of deficit irrigation, to compare scenarios of water consumption on main and secondary crop schedules. The soil water balance model SIMDualKc was used, after due calibration and validation, using the dual crop coefficient methodology (Kc dual). A series of experiments were done (drybeans in 2010/11; maize in secondary schedule in 2010/11; maize in 2011/12; and soybean in 2014/15), with the imposition of different irrigation deficits as treatments, using drip irrigation and mulching. The results of SIMDualKc simulations show good agreement between the observed and simulated available soil water (ASW) content, values of regression coefficients (b0) were in average 0,98 for drybeans, 0,97 for soybean, 1,0 for secondary schedule maize and 1,05 for regular maize. The adjusted Kcb values for local conditions were respectively to bean, soybean and maize, 0,15; 0,15; 0,2 for the initial period (Kcb ini), 1,03; 1,0; 1,12 for the middle season (Kcb mid); and 0,2 for the end season for all crops (Kcb end). The results of water balance for each crop show that the less water is given to the plants, the better the water use, keeping in mind that ETc have not reduced in the same proportion. Regarding main and secondary schedules for maize the results for soil water balance show that main schedule maize had an increased water consumption (higher ETc) when compared to secondary schedule. The Es component was lower than 26% of ETc, for bean and soybean, and lower than 9% of ETc for maize, indicating the positive effect of mulching.