Irrigation management tool that evaluates the present hydric necessities of the vine and predicts the future ones

The objective of the project is to implement an irrigation management tool capable of evaluating the present hydric necessities of the vine and of predicting future vine irrigation requirements.

The tool will input data from meteorological stations and from soil humidity sensors set in the experimental plot. Humidity data will be related with the data periodically obtained of soil water content, through TDR sensors. This correlation will allow to characterize the most common soil humidity sensors used in Galician vineyards.

To implement the tool, an effective adjustment of the cultivation coefficient (Kc) from field measurements is needed. To implement this modeling is crucial to characterize the vegetal canopy and soil covering, as well as the active vegetation in each phenological stage. Thus, it is necessary to study the cultural vine management that affects that active vegetation.

For the future irrigation predictions, the system will consider a 7-days-meteorological prediction. From these data, information regarding pluviometry will be obtained, and a 7-day-prediction model of the reference evapotranspiration (ETo) and of the cultivation coefficient (Kc) will be implemented based on the phenological stage.

REGAVID is funded by grants for the execution of operational groups of the European Innovation Partnership (EIP), 75% co-funded by the European Agricultural Fund for the rural Development (EAFRD), in the framework of the 2014-2020 Galician Rural Development Program (RDP). Total budget: €180,000.00 (100% funded).

The Consellería do Medio Rural is the Galician Administration authority responsible for proposing and executing the general guidelines in the rural scope and encompasses powers in agriculture, livestock, rural development, and regional planning, rural structures, agri-food, and forestry industries, mountains, and prevention and defense against forest fires.

Check out the project’s brochure: Spanish / English