Introduction
The Readily Available Water (RAW) feature helps you manage your irrigation in a simple way, by indicating the quantity of water available for your crops in the soil.
The goal: to help you know when to irrigate and how much, without having to interpret complex data. Tensiometer data (in kPa) is not always straightforward to analyse.
Prerequisites
To use this feature, you need to:
- create a plot
- link at least one tensiometer to the plot
- complete the plot configuration (environment, irrigation type, crop and soil texture)
To display the widget, you will also need to add it from the widget catalogue on your plot.
What does the reservoir represent?
The water reservoir represents the stock of water available in the soil for your plants.
Two zones are distinguished:
- Readily Available Water (RAW):
Water is easily accessible by plant roots → your crops are in water comfort - Survival reservoir:
Water is harder to extract → your crops are entering water stress
The saturation zone is visible simply to indicate the phenomenon of soil water saturation.
The goal is to keep the water level within the Readily Available Water zone (RAW) for as long as possible while triggering irrigation before it is exceeded. Several techniques and methods are available for this.
At the bottom of the graph, rainfall and irrigation events are displayed to provide context for the RAW level curve.
How to read the map?
On the map, each plot displays a level in millimetres (mm), corresponding to the water available in the soil.
It depends on the aggregation of your choice. At D-1 the level may still be satisfactory, whereas at D 0 it may be completely in the survival reservoir.
- Dark blue (Soil saturation zone): if the cursor is here, the soil is saturated with water
- Light blue (Readily Available Water): if the cursor is here, the water level is easily accessible by plants
- Red (Survival reservoir): if the cursor is here, crops are under water stress
- Cursor: reservoir level
This allows you to:
- Quickly identify plots to monitor
- Prioritise your irrigation interventions
Settings
To complement the widget available on plot pages, you have several settings:
- Show or hide the phenological stages of your crop, allowing you to correlate your irrigation strategy with key growth stages
- The default configuration corresponds to the time period and time step displayed by default when consulting the reservoir level (e.g. the last 30 days for an overview)
- The scale configuration offers 2 options: automatic scale (fitted to the curve amplitude) or custom scale (where you can define the lower and upper bounds)
- Finally, the option to remove the widget if it is not useful to you or if you prefer to use the tensiometer or capacitive probe data widget.
How to use this feature on a daily basis?
1. Monitor the water level
Regularly check the map or graph to track reservoir evolution and plan the start of your irrigation season.
2. Anticipate your irrigations
When the level approaches the survival reservoir, plan an irrigation event.
3. Adjust inputs
After irrigation or rainfall, check the impact on the level and adjust your irrigation strategy.
What are the benefits?
- Simplified irrigation decisions
- Better water management
- Reduction of water stress
- Time saved in analysis
Good to know
Currently, this calculation is based on your sensor data. It is limited to the maximum depth of your sensors: e.g. between 20 and 90 cm for tensiometers and 60 cm for capacitive probes. However, your soil may be 1 m or 1.5 m deep...