SmartCrop® Sensors for Predicting Irrigation Requirements for Peanut in the Southeast

Abstract. Plant and Soil sensors are aids that can increase the efficacy of irrigation scheduling by providing data about current environmental conditions during each crop production season. The utilization of sensors provide opportunities for implementing advanced irrigation scheduling techniques in combination with variable rate irrigation (VRI) into production practices. This combination can be considered Precision Irrigation. Most soil moisture sensors are expensive and it is hard to justify populating a production field with them. SmartCrop ® sensors by SmartField provide canopy temperature, which has been shown to have strong correlations with plant moisture stress. Most of these correlations have been developed in the arid western US, specifically the High Plains of Texas. The SmartCrop ® sensor is a relatively cheap option, when compared to most other commercially available sensors. More research needs to be completed in the humid Southeast to determine if the sensors provide accurate data that can be used to estimate irrigation requirements. This study used SmartField’s SmartCrop ® canopy temperature sensors in peanuts to log canopy temperature throughout a production season. The goal was to determine moisture stress thresholds and their correlations to irrigation requirements. Initial data has not provided very strong relationships to accumulated stress minutes and irrigation requirements. However, a well-watered baseline was developed for canopy temperature response to vapor pressure deficit in order to calculate an empirically-derived crop water stress index (CWSI) for peanut. The utility of canopy temperature-derived CWSI as an effective irrigation scheduling tool for peanut in the humid southeast will be assessed in future work.