Dear all,
I am working on a formula to assist farmers to have a better irrigation and water management, to help save water. We want them to know when and how much to irrigate their farming fields, we have developed a sensor to assist with soil knowledge but we also need to account for external factors. The external factors are quite a lot (around 8), and I was wondering if anyone has any experience in setting up formulas for these kind of things. If it is not possible to account for all factors, it is possible to let some out of the formula.
First of we have our sensor data, at the moment we only want soil humidity to be in the formula.
Second we want to account for climate data, wind/sun/rain/temperature (maybe air humidity). I think it is possible to not account for all of these, maybe only use rain and temperature.
Third we want to account for: type of plant/ growth phase of the plant and what soil it is grown in. This is data we need to have figured out before, external factors will not influence the value of these so we can set a vast value for this. Because the irrigation needs for an x plant in an x growth phase will always be the same. We need to connect transevaporation rate to it as well.
In my opinion the formule needs to exist out of the first and second information for sure and maybe calculate the outcome of that with the 3rd. But to be honest I do not have the experience or knowledge to figure this out. Is anyone the person or know a person to assist with this. If anyone is able to help us make this formula completely functional, we want to reward as well.
Thank you for taking the time to read this, and hopefully there is anyone with the knowledge and experience.
My sincerely, Morris la Crois
First thing you need to know is the water requirementt of the selected crop/plant in the experimental area. When you have the delta water for a specific crop then split the requirement in irrigation intervals and apply the known volume of water by installing flumes to apply required amount of water according to your management practice. If you had a rain water entered the field during experiment then you can minus the dropped rain water from delta water by calculating the rainfall.
The most commonly used method for this calculation is the Penman-Monteith equation, which is recommended by the FAO of the United Nations.
Here's the simplified form of the Penman-Monteith equation:
ETc = Kc * ETo
Where:
ETc represents the crop evapotranspiration (crop water requirement).
Kc is the crop coefficient, which takes into account the specific crop type and its growth stage. It varies throughout the crop's life cycle.
ETo is the reference evapotranspiration, which is calculated based on meteorological data including temperature, humidity, wind speed, and solar radiation.
To calculate ETo, you can use the FAO-56 Penman-Monteith equation, which is a more complex formula taking into account various meteorological parameters. Here's a simplified version of it:
ETo = 0.408 * Delta * (Rn - G) + (900 / (T + 273)) * U2 * Delta * (eS - eA)
Where:
Delta is the slope of the vapor pressure curve.
Rn is the net radiation.
G is the soil heat flux.
T is the air temperature in Celsius.
U2 is the wind speed at 2 meters above the ground.
eS is the saturation vapor pressure.
eA is the actual vapor pressure.
I am currently dealing with multi-factor and multidimensional data set. To learn about the importance of each factor and variable I am using Regression Tree and Random Forest models. It is an useful extra option.
>>>anyway, start with ALL variables & factors, plus their interactions, in a Mixed model. you have good answer already...
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