Canopy flow and aspects of the response of plants protected by herbaceous shelterbelts and wood fences

Abstract

Field experiments have been conducted in the semiarid southwest region of La Pampa, Argentina, in order to investigate the effect of different types of windbreak on wind characteristics and growth parameters of wheat (Triticum aestivum, Buck Charrua variety) within the sheltered region. Windbreaks decrease wind speed, reducing damage to the crop and improving yield and quality. Sheltering may improve microclimate conditions for plant growth and protects the soil from wind erosion. Aspects of the sheltering ability of four different windbreaks have been tested: single and double row herbaceous (Tritio secale) shelterbelts, and two different artificial wooden fences, with the same overall average porosity, but with different porosity distributions. Mean velocity, turbulence intensity, skewness distributions and spectral and wavelet analysis have been performed in order to characterise the turbulent flow downstream of the different windbreaks. Wheat grain yield and harvest index were compared with adjacent unsheltered plantations. The single and double row shelterbelts enhanced the grain yield and the harvest index of the protected plants. An influence of the turbulent structure on plant growth is suggested by the different response of plants sheltered by the two types of artificial fences.

Effectiveness of shelterbelt with a non-uniform density distribution

“…Raine and Stevenson, 1977;Perera, 1981), field observations (e.g. Wilson, 1985;Wen and Wang, 1991;Mohammed et al, 1996;Boldes et al, 2002;Cleugh, 1998;Torita and Satou, 2007;Tuzet and Wilson, 2007;Zhao et al, 2008) and numerical simulations (e.g. Nelmes et al, 2001;Vigiak et al, 2003;Wang and Takle, 1996a, b;Wilson, 1985).…”

Planting of different-sized tree transplants on arable soil

“…Windbreaks have a favorable impact on intensively farmed landscapes; they help improve agricultural production [1][2][3][4][5] and are an important component of agricultural management systems [6][7][8]. They also favorably influence the microclimate of the respective territory and prevent wind erosion [9][10][11].…”

Modelling the size-dependent collection efficiency of hedgerows for ambient aerosols

“…Several investigators have reported the influence of windbreaks on the local microclimate, based either on field measurements (Boldes, Goldberg, Di Leo, Colman, & Scarabino, 2002), wind tunnel studies (Billman & Arya, 1985) or purely numerical simulations (Wang & Takle, 1995;Wilson, 1985;Zeng & Takahashi, 2000), although these results were obtained only for the overall structure of the barriers. Realistic description of the essential micro-scale parameters for the vegetation, such as porosity and flow structure, have been difficult to obtain and significant data gaps exist in associating the dependence of the underlying deposition mechanism on the biological materials of the barrier (Ucar et al, 2003).…”