Advanced techniques using the plant as indicator of irrigation management

• Main Authors: Barbara dos Santos Esteves, Lidiane de Lima Lousada, Elias Fernandes de Sousa, Eliemar Campostrini
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Universidade Federal de Santa Maria 2015-05-01
• Series: Ciência Rural
• Subjects: fluxo de seiva; dendrometria; pressão de turgescência foliar.
• Online Access: http://www.scielo.br/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S0103-84782015000500821&lng=en&tlng=en

The methodologies which are considered the most promising for irrigation management are those based on the analysis of the water status of the plants themselves. This justifies the study and improvement of indicators based on automatic and continuous measures to enable real-time monitoring data, as indices from sap flow, dendrometry and leaf turgor pressure techniques. The aim of this paper is to analyze such methodologies in order to demonstrate their principles, advantages and challenges. In conclusion, the methodologies analyzed still have many technological advances and challenges before being presented to the final user. The future research should work these tools for elaboration of technical indexes that allow their simplification, on the instrumental point of view, and the interpretation of their results.