The Typical Grower Report

This is a typical grower report that is emailed to the grower once a week during the irrigation season. Information is presented in both table and graph form to help with the interpretation of the data.  The information in the Summary box included the crop curve for this site, the size of the site, the field capacity, and the MAD level. The MAD depletion value for this site is in bold and highlighted below this box. The Next Irrigation box shows the date of the next predicted irrigation, irrigation duration, and the amount of water delivered. You will notice that the amount delivered is large than the MAD due to the fact that this particular system efficiency is 94%. Just below this box is the Last Inspection showing the date and calculated depletion. The calculated depletion is placed besides the MAD to allow for a direct comparison. The Neutron Probe box displays the measured soil moisture values on a per foot basis with a calculated depletion values. This depletion value is determined by subtracting the measured value from the field capacity. The measured soil moisture and calculated depletions are totaled at the bottom of this box.

This information is graphically presented in the box entitled “Soil Moisture Reservoir.” The numbers on the vertical axis are inches of water. The top horizontal line show the field capacity, the middle line shows the MAD, and the bottom line is the PWP or permanent wilt point. The PWP is set at 50% of field capacity and this is the soil water that the plant can not access. This graph looks at a two week period of time with the week on the left is measured ETo values and the week to the right is predicted values based on 25 years of daily averaged ETo. The dark blue line represents the plant water use based on the crop coefficient and measured ETo values. The turquoise line represents crop water use based on historic daily ETo average to calculate the ETc. When this line crosses the MAD line it is time to irrigate. Included next to this graph is a table containing the measured and predicted ETo information based on the weeks shown in the graph. The Loss column is the ETc for this site based on the crop curve and coefficient. The ET column is the measured or predicted reference ET. Finally, the column titled Refill Hours gives changing irrigation durations for the grower if he needs to irrigate prior to the suggested date for any reason.