Measurements and simulations of heat and water balance components in a clay soil cropped with winter wheat under drought stress or daily irrigation and fertilization

Abstract

Soil water and temperature dynamics were measured in a field experiment with winter wheat on a clay soil. There were four treatments: Control (C), receiving natural precipitation, drought (D), protected from rain by plastic screens during the growing season, daily irrigation (I) and daily irrigation and fertilization (IF). Treatments C, D and I received the nitrogen fertilizer as a single application of solid fertilizer in spring. In IF daily dressings of nutrients were supplied in the irrigation water. All treatments received 20 g Nm⁻². An associated experiment with a newly sown grass ley (L) that was irrigated and fertilized daily (total 5.6 g Nm ⁻²) was also performed. Standard meteorological variables (air temperature and humidity, wind speed, precipitation, global radiation, and relative cloudiness) and crop development data (green area index, crop height, relative root distribution in depth) above and below ground were used as driving variables within a physically based dynamic model (SOIL) for simulating water and heat fluxes. Measured soil temperature and water content from one treatment (I) were used to tune the model parameters, tentatively set from literature data. Thereafter, water and heat fluxes in the other treatments were simulated using the same parameter values but with different crop-related measurements as driving variables for each treatment. Measured soil temperature and water content in C, D, IF and L could thus be used for validation of the simulations. The theory formulated in the model could accurately explain measured treatment differences in soil water and temperature dynamics. Since the soil-related parameters were identical in all treatments, the model was shown to be applicable over a wide range of moisture conditions.