| description abstract | Increasing competition for water and the desire for high-quality
turfgrass require sound irrigation water management. The main objective
of this study was to evaluate two types of commercially available
irrigation control technologies: one based on evapotranspiration (ET)
estimates and the other based on feedback from a soil-moisture sensor
(SMS). Irrigation treatments were combinations of controller technology:
a timer-based standard controller system (TIM), an add-on (1 set point)
SMS system (SMS1), and an evapotranspiration (ET)-based system (ETB),
and watering frequency: weekly, twice per week, and daily (1, 2, and
7 days per week, respectively) plus a 10th treatment of an on-demand
(2 set point) SMS system (SMS2). Both irrigation efficiency and adequacy
were best for the SMS2 treatment when averaged over all three years.
The SMS1 treatment provided good irrigation efficiency, but irrigation
adequacy suffered, most noticeably with the twice per week treatment.
The ET treatment provided good irrigation adequacy, but had the poorest
irrigation efficiency. SMS treatments resulted in average water savings
of 39% in SMS1 treatments and 24% in the SMS2 treatment compared to
the timer-based treatments, whereas the ET treatments applied 11%
more water, on average, than the timer-based treatments. The weekly
SMS1 treatment applied the least amount of water ( | |
