Effects of Subsurface Drainage on Evapotranspiration for Corn and Soybean Crops in Southeastern North Dakota
Publication: Journal of Irrigation and Drainage Engineering
Volume 138, Issue 12
Abstract
A field experiment was conducted during the 2009 and 2010 growing seasons to determine the effect of subsurface drainage (SSD) on evapotranspiration (ET) and crop coefficients () for a farm field in the Red River Valley of North Dakota. The total area of the field was 44 ha, half of which had subsurface drainage installed in the fall of 2002 at an approximate depth of 1.1 m and a spacing of 18.3 m. Corn (Zea mays) was planted in 2009 and soybean (Glycine max) in 2010. Evapotranspiration rates were measured in both the SSD and surface drained [or undrained (UD)] by using the eddy covariance (EC) method. The changes in water table and soil moisture content were monitored continuously in both fields. The for corn and soybean was developed by using the ET measured by the EC system, and the reference ET was estimated by using the American Society of Civil Engineers Environmental and Water Resources Institute alfalfa reference method. As expected, the use of SSD affected the ET in a seasonal pattern and the ET was crop dependent. Seasonally, higher ET was observed during spring and fall in the UD field attributable to shallower water table and higher soil moisture content. In the summer, a higher ET was found in the SSD field. The higher ET in the UD field in spring and fall, which was 109 and 191 mm in 2009 and 2010, compared with 105 and 176 mm in 2009 and 2010 in the SSD field, did not offset the higher ET in the SSD field in the summer, which was 310 and 351 mm in 2009 and 2010, compared with 249 and 324 mm in 2009 and 2010 in the UD field. For July and August, the ET in the SSD field was 31% greater in 2009 for corn and 14% greater in 2010 for soybean than that in the UD crop fields. For the entire growing season, the ET in the SSD field was 16% higher in 2009 and 7% higher in 2010 compared with the UD field. During the peak growing season (July), the was greater in the SSD field, with peak values of 0.70 for corn and 0.76 for soybean, but in the UD field, the peak values were only 0.54 for corn and 0.65 for soybean.
Get full access to this article
View all available purchase options and get full access to this article.
Acknowledgments
The authors are thankful to Miller’s Farm of Fairmount, ND, for providing its highly productive land for this research. The funding for the project was provided by USDA under grants CSREES NRI 2008-35102-19253. An additional support was provided by USDA NRCS, the North Dakota Agricultural Experiment Station, the North Dakota State Water Commission, North Dakota Water Resources Research Institute, and the North Dakota Department of Health. The authors wish to thank Mr. James Moos, Ms. Jana Daeuber, Mr. Sheldon Tuscherer, Mr. Dongqing Lin, and Ms. Kelsey Kolars for their technical and other support. Mention of trade names is for information purposes only and does not imply endorsement by the authors or North Dakota State University.
References
Allen, R. G., and Fisher, K. K. (1990). “Low-cost electronic weighing lysimeters.” Trans. ASAE, 33(6), 1823–1833.
Allen, R. G., Pereira, L. S., Raes, D., and Smith, M. (1998). “Crop evapotranspiration: Guidelines for computing crop water requirements.”, Rome, Italy.
Allen, R. G., Walter, I. A., Elliot, R., Howell, T., Itenfisu, D., and Jensen, M., eds. (2005). “The ASCE standardized reference evapotranspiration equation.” ASCE-EWRI Task Committee Report, American Society of Civil Engineers, Reston, VA.
Ayars, J. E., Christen, E. W., and Hornbuckle, J. W. (2006). “Controlled drainage for improved water management in arid regions irrigated agriculture.” Agric. Water Manage., 86(1–2), 128–139.
Baldocchi, D. D., Hicks, B. B., and Meyers, T. P. (1988). “Measuring biosphere-atmosphere exchanges of biologically related gases with micrometeorological methods.” Ecology, 69(5), 1331–1340.
Berliner, P. R., and Oosterhuis, D. M. (1987). “Effect of root and water distribution in lysimeters and in the field on the onset of crop water stress.” Irrig. Sci., 8(4), 245–255.
Campbell, G. S., and Norman, J. M. (1998). An introduction to environmental biophysics, 2nd Ed., Springer, New York.
Campbell Scientific, Inc. (2007). Instructional manual, Logan, UT.
Castellvi, F., and Synder, R. L. (2010). “A comparison between latent heat fluxes over grass using a weighing lysimeter and surface renewal analysis.” J. Hydrol., 381(3–4), 213–220.
Farahani, H. J., Howell, T. A., Shuttleworth, W. J., and Bausch, W. C. (2007). “Evapotranspiration: Progress in measurement and modeling in agriculture.” Trans. ASABE, 50, 1627–1638.
Hillel, D. (1998). Environmental soil physics, Academic Press, San Diego.
Hsieh, C. I., Katul, G. G., and Chi, T. W. (2000). “An approximate analytical model for footprint estimation of scalar fluxes in thermally stratified atmospheric flows.” Adv. Water Resour., 23(7), 765–772.
Jensen, M. E., Burman, R. D., and Allen, R. G., eds. (1990). “Evapotranspiration and irrigation water requirements.” ASCE manual of practice no. 70., New York.
Jensen, M. E., and Haise, H. R. (1963). “Estimating evapotranspiration from solar radiation.” J. Irri. Drain. Div., 89, 15–41.
Jia, X., DeSutter, T. M., Lin, Z., Schuh, W. M., and Steele, D. D. (2012). “Subsurface drainage and subirrigation effects on water quality in southeast North Dakota.” Trans. ASABE, 55(5), 1757–1769.
Jia, X., Dukes, M. D., and Jacobs, J. M. (2009). “Bahiagrass crop coefficients from eddy correlation measurements in central Florida.” Irrig. Sci., 28(1), 5–15.
Jia, X., Dukes, M. D., Jacobs, J. M., and Irmak, S. (2006). “Weighing lysimeters for evapotranspiration research in a humid environment.” Trans. ASABE, 49(2), 401–412.
Jia, X., Swancar, A., Jacobs, J. M., Dukes, M. D., and Morgan, K. (2007). “Comparison of evapotranspiration rates for flatwoods and ridge citrus.” Trans. ASABE, 50(1), 83–94.
Kahlown, M. A., and Azam, M. (2002). “Individual and combined effect of waterlogging and salinity on crop yields in the Indus basin.” Irrig. Drain., 51(4), 329–338.
Li, S., Kang, S., Zhu, Z., Du, T., Tong, L., and Li, F. (2008). “Research progress of measurement of land surface evapotranspiration based on eddy covariance technology.” Sci. Agric. Sin., 41(9), 2720–2726.
Marek, T., Piccinni, G., Schneider, A., Howell, T., Jett, M., and Dusek, D. (2006). “Weighing lysimeters for the determination of crop water requirements and crop coefficients.” Trans. ASAE, 22(6), 851–856.
Nachabe, M., Shah, N., Ross, M., and Vomacka, J. (2005). “Evapotranspiration of two vegetation covers in a shallow water table environment.” Soil Sci. Soc. Am. J., 69(2), 492–499.
North Dakota Agricultural Weather Network Center (NDAWN). (2011). “North Dakota agricultural weather network center.” North Dakota State Univ., Fargo, ND, 〈http://ndawn.ndsu.nodak.edu/〉 (Sep. 22, 2011).
Priestley, C. H. B., and Taylor, R. J. (1972). “On the assessment of surface heat flux and evaporation using large-scale parameters.” Monthly Weather Rev., 100(2), 81–92.
Rijal, I. (2011). “Reference evapotranspiration and actual evapotranspiration measurements in southeastern North Dakota.” M.S. thesis, Dept. of Agricultural and Biosystems Engineering, North Dakota State Univ., Fargo, ND.
Scherer, T. F., and Jia, X. (2010). “A simple method to measure the flow rate and volume from tile drainage pump stations.” Appl. Eng. Agric., 26(1), 79–83.
Skaggs, R. W., Breve, M. A., and Gilliam, J. W. (1994). “Hydrologic and water-quality impacts of agricultural drainage.” Crit. Rev. Env. Sci. Technol., 24(1), 1–32.
Skaggs, R. W., and Schilfgaarde, J. V., eds. (1999). “Agricultural drainage No. 38.” American Society of Agronomy, Crop Science Society of America, and Soil Science Society of America, Madison, WI.
Snyder, R. L., and Connell, N. O. (2007). “Citrus crop coefficients determined using a surface renewal method.” J. Irrig. Drain. Eng., 133(1), 43–52.
Steele, D. D., Sajid, A. H., and Prunty, L. D. (1996). “New corn evapotranspiration crop curves for southeastern North Dakota.” Trans. ASAE, 39(3), 931–936.
Stegman, E. C., Bauer, A. J., Zubriski, C., and Bauder, J. (1977). “Crop curves for water balance irrigation scheduling in S. E. North Dakota.” North Dakota Research Report, Fargo, ND.
Sumner, D. M. (2001). “Evapotranspiration from a cypress and pine forest subjected to natural fires, Volusia County, Florida, 1998–99.”, U.S. Geological Survey, Tallahassee, FL.
Tan, C. S., Drury, C. F., Gaynor, J. D., Welacky, T. W., and Reynolds, W. D. (2002). “Effect of tillage and water table control on evapotranspiration, surface runoff, tile drainage and soil water content under maize on a clay loam soil.” Agric. Water Manage., 54(3), 173–188.
Testi, L., Villalobos, F. J., and Orgaz, F.(2004). “Evapotranspiration of a young irrigated olive orchard in southern Spain.” Agric. For. Meteorol., 121(1–2), 1–18.
Twine, T. E. et al. (2000). “Correcting eddy-covariance flux underestimates over a grassland.” Agric. For. Meteorol., 103(3), 279–300.
Webb, E. K., Pearman, G. I., and Leuning, R. (1980). “Correlation of flux measurements for density effects due to heat and water vapour transfer.” Q. J. Roy. Meteorol. Soc., 106(447), 85–100.
Wilson, K. B., Hanson, P. J., Mulholl, P. J., Baldocchi, D. D., and Wullschleger, S. D. (2001). “A comparison of methods for determining forest evapotranspiration and its components: Sap-flow, soil water budget, eddy covariance and catchment water balance.” Agric. For. Meteorol., 106(2), 153–168.
Zermeno-Gonzalez, A. et al. (2010). “Evapotranspiration and its relation to equilibrium evapotranspiration of a pecan nut orchard (Carya illinoinensis) of northern Mexico.” Agrociencia, 44(8), 885–893.
Zhang, X. D., Jia, X., Yang, J., and Hu, L. (2010). “Evaluation of most functions and roughness length parameterization on sensible heat flux measured by large aperture scintillometer over a corn field.” Agric. For. Meteorol., 150(9), 1182–1191.
Information & Authors
Information
Published In
Copyright
© 2012 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: Oct 7, 2011
Accepted: May 16, 2012
Published online: May 19, 2012
Published in print: Dec 1, 2012
Authors
Metrics & Citations
Metrics
Citations
Download citation
If you have the appropriate software installed, you can download article citation data to the citation manager of your choice. Simply select your manager software from the list below and click Download.