Water Scarcity Footprint Analysis of Container-Grown Plants in a Model Research Nursery as Affected by Irrigation and Fertilization Treatments

Abstract

Water scarcity footprint (WSF) was determined for irrigation experiments in 2017 and 2018 for container-grown plants in a specially designed research nursery in Michigan, USA. The system design allowed for the capture of irrigation water running off a fabric surface of a nursery bed and irrigation water that passed through the fabric surface and moved through a bed of sand under the fabric. The volume of irrigation water applied (IWA) from a groundwater source and the volume of water that would be necessary to dilute (WD) water leaving the system to tap water standards for NO 3 − and PO 4 3 − of 10 mg L−1 and 0.05 mg L−1, respectively, were determined. The sum of IWA and WD would be the consumptive water use (CWU) of each treatment. WSF was calculated by weighting these component volumes per plant grown in a 10.2 L container using the consumption-to-availability scarcity index for this river basin. The WSF of water requirements for dilution (WSFwd) for plants in 2017 (20 May to 25 September) were calculated as 150, 37, and 34 L per plant for control plants, those receiving 2 L per day, and those returned to container capacity daily, respectively. In 2018 (11 June to 12 October), WSF of irrigation water applied (WSFiwa) for control plants, those receiving daily water use replacement (DWU), and those returned to container capacity daily were calculated to be 116, 61, and 28 L. Control plants received 19 mm of irrigation daily through overhead sprinklers in both experiments. In almost all cases, the PO 4 3 − dilution requirements set the dilution coefficients for WSFwd calculations. The irrigation control treatment resulted in higher WSFwd than irrigation treatments through spray stakes providing 2 L per container per day, irrigation returning the substrate water content to container capacity daily, or daily irrigation based on DWU. Fertilizer treatments and substrate composition treatments across irrigation treatments had only a minor impact on WSF.

Monitoring drought response and chlorophyll content in Quercus by consumer-grade, near-infrared (NIR) camera: a comparison with reflectance spectroscopy

“…Other applications concern actions to deal with climate change challenges (Reyer et al 2013;Trumbore et al 2015), especially those linked to drought (Zhao and Running 2010;IPCC 2014;Green et al 2019) and extreme events, such as heatwaves (Hoerling et al 2012;Schuldt et al 2020), which begin to hit also regions that currently only experience limited dry periods (Eckstein et al 2019). Recently, in the framework of water security, nature-based solutions and a more sustainable use of water-resources, it is required to rapidly and carefully detect plant status, in order to become operational in many activities (Harou et al 2009;Cohen-Shacham et al 2016), such as nursery (Fulcher et al 2016;Knight et al 2019) or precision agriculture and forestry (FAO 2013;Fardusi et al 2017;Mereu et al 2018).…”

Irrigation return flow and nutrient movement mitigation by irrigation method for container plant production

“…Agricultural production as a whole represents the majority of freshwater consumption worldwide (Döll 2009;Pimentel et al 2004), and as global water security concerns mount, it is expected that water will be preferentially allocated towards uses of direct human consumption, with ornamental and specialty crops likely to be one of the most scrutinized agricultural sectors with respect to water management (Fulcher et al 2016;Godfray et al 2010;Majsztrik et al 2019;Rodell et al 2018). The intensive nature of container crop production requires substantial water, fertilizer, and pesticide inputs (Knight et al 2019;Ristvey et al 2019;White et al 2019). Nurseries with access to ample, inexpensive water resources may not face the same immediate pressures to reduce their water use; however, inefficient and excessive irrigation is not without deleterious impact (Majsztrik et al 2018).…”