Climatology

Irrigation Scheduling in Michigan

The objective of this project is the development of a worldwide web (www)-based irrigation scheduling software system that assists growers and managers with decisions involving the amounts and timing of water use for crops grown in Michigan. Our major specific objectives are:

1. development, testing, and validation of irrigation scheduler software for multiple crops grown in Michigan,
2. development of a spatial data resource which provides necessary real-time input weather data to the irrigation scheduling system,
3. integration of the results of Objectives 1 and 2 into a complete irrigation scheduler system on a www-based computer platform including performance testing and evaluation, and
4. public release of the scheduler system with educational training sessions held for prospective users of the system.

The software is developed from an earlier version of Irrigation Scheduler (v3.3) by Walid Shayya and Vince Bralts based on the idea of mass hydrological balance for a given field. The new system utilizes weather data from the Michigan Automated Weather Network (MAWN) based on a user-defined location.

The system is available on line at: http://www.weather-icm.geo.msu.edu/is4/.

The system was made available publicly for testing purposes on 1 June 2006 and is funded by the Michigan Agricultural Experiment Station.