CUSTOMIZED LAND SURFACE MODELING FOR IRRIGATION DECISION SUPPORT IN A CROP AND AGRONOMIC ADVISORY SERVICE IN PRECISION AGRICULTURE

摘要

An irrigation modeling framework in precision agriculture utilizes a combination of weather data, crop data, and other agricultural inputs to create customized agronomic models for diagnosing and predicting a moisture state in a field, and a corresponding need for, and timing of, irrigation activities. Specific combinations of various agricultural inputs can be applied, together with weather information to identify or adjust water-related characteristics of crops and soils, to model optimal irrigation activities and provide advisories, recommendations, and scheduling guidance for targeted application of artificial precipitation to address specific moisture conditions in a soil system of a field.

主权项

1. A method, comprising:
ingesting, as input data, weather and climatological information that includes at least one of historical field-level weather data and extended-range weather forecast data, and crop-specific information relative to a particular field; modeling the input data in a plurality of data processing modules within a computing environment in which the plurality of data processing modules are executed in conjunction with at least one specifically-configured processor, the data processing modules configured to assess a moisture state of a soil system in the particular field, by 1) diagnosing and predicting expected weather conditions at or near the particular field from the weather and climatological information, 2) aggregating the expected weather conditions with the crop-specific information into coupled crop and soil simulation models of one or more physical and empirical characteristics impacting the moisture state in the soil system, and configured to simulate soil-water characteristics in a crop root zone relative to one or more crop growth stages of a crop in the particular field, the soil-water characteristics including crop water usage, a depth profile of where water is extracted from by the crop at the one or more growth stages, adequacy of water supply at the soil depth, and an impact of prior irrigation activity on the moisture state; and generating, as output data, a root zone moisture profile representing the moisture state of the soil system in the particular field over time for the one or more crop growth stages from the simulated soil-water characteristics.