Empirical Setting of the Water Stressed Baseline Increases the Uncertainty of the Crop Water Stress Index in a Humid Temperate Climate in Different Water Regimes

Abstract

Water productivity of rice is imperative for global water security. Currently, water saving management techniques have been proposed and applied to rice systems. The crop water stress index (CWSI) is a major index for evaluating crop water use. The utility of the CWSI in rice in a humid temperate climate has been given little attention. Previous studies have focused on upland crops and readily available constant reference baselines, primarily the water stressed baseline (WSB), which does not inherently reflect transpiration flux. This study examined the performance of the estimated non-water stressed baseline (NWSB) and WSB for rice in a humid climate and the CWSI sensitivity under variable reference baseline scenarios in a 2-year pot trial under phytotron and field environment conditions with two rice genotypes (IRAT109 and Takanari) in a flooded (FL) and aerobic (AR) water regime. We observed that the dynamics of CWSI is dependent not only on the water regimes but could be strongly influenced by genotype sensitivity to vapor pressure deficit (VPD). A higher slope (pooled data) in the field environment (−5.68 °C kPa−1) compared to the phytotron (−3.04 °C kPa−1) reflected transpiration water loss sensitivity to VPD thresholds. Further studies with diverse rice germplasms to explore generalizability to field conditions and reformulation of reference baselines considering the VPD threshold sensitivity could prove to be significant.