Abstract
These experiments were intended as a demonstration for improved water management in irrigated areas in central Tunisia. A 36 by 36 m square, level agricultural field, sheltered with a vertical perforated plastic net 1.7 m high, was compared with an unsheltered site of the same size situated 100 m from the former. Five yield plots, each 1 by 1 m and arranged in a row across each site, were sown manually with wheat. The remaining area of the sites was broadcast sown. Irrigation was performed with sprinklers. Measurements of potential evaporation, mean wind speed, temperature, soil moisture content, and electrical conductivity were made regularly at the yield plots. The potential evaporation (evaporative demand) and the mean wind speed were, on average, smaller at the sheltered site. The mean temperature was not affected to any significant degree. The actual water use by the crop, and the grain and straw yields were larger at the sheltered site. The water use efficiency (the amount of water used to produce one unit of crop) was not shown to differ. The spatial variation in potential evaporation at the sheltered site was compared with the same control site for corresponding months during a different year with bare soil (no crop, not irrigated). The variation in potential evaporation as a function of distance to the shelter line was independent of direction on the bare soil (four directions). The same spatial pattern occurred as in the irrigated case (two directions). The advection of energy brought by the wind seemed to have an overriding role on evaporative demand in our small‐scale sheltered land.
Published Version
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