JWSS - Journal of Water and Soil Science

Sugar beet is one of the most important agricultural crops and its yield depends on irrigation water. Due to the impossibility of assessing the effect of all water amount strategies on sugar beet yield, it is necessary to use crop models such as WOFOST, AquaCrop and Cropsyst. In order to achieve this goal, a set of data collected from Shahrekord’s Agricultural Research Station were used. Treatments consisted of irrigation water amount (in five levels: E0: 100%, E1: 85%, E2: 70%, E3: 55%, and E4: 30%) based on crop evapotranspiration in different growth stages (T1: initial, T2: T2: mid-season, and T3: late season). The values of RMSE statistical criteria for the results of AquaCrop, WOFOST and CropSyst simulation were equal to 0.57, 0.68, and 0.26 ton.ha^-1, respectively. NRMSE results were also obtained to be 0.11, 0.13, and 0.05 ton.ha^-1 for the mentioned crop mpdels, respectively. The results of the EF criteria revealed that CropSyst (0.91) had better efficiency, as compared to AquaCrop (0.62) and WOFOST (0.47). Regarding the results, it is suggested to use CropSyst to simulate sugar beet yield in similar conditions.

This study was conducted to evaluate AquaCrop for the simulation of potato yield and water use efficiency (WUE) under different water stress values at five levels (E0, E1, E2, E3 and E4, indicating 100, 85, 70, 50 and 30 percent of crop water needed, respectively) in three times during growth cycles (T1, T2, and T3, indicating 50, 100, and 150 days after sowing, respectively). The results showed that AquaCrop had overestimated and underestimated error for the simulation of yield and WUE, respectively. Based on RMSE and NRMSE values, the errors for yield and WUE were acceptable. The maximum and minimum error were also 0.3 (E1T3) and 3.15 (E1T2), respectively. The results obtained for WUE showed that the maximum and minimum were 0.53 (E3T2) and 0.03 (E4T2), respectively. The average differences between simulated and observed results (ADSO) of WUE for E1, E2, E3 and E4 were 0.24, 0.25, 0.19, and 0.44 ton.ha^-1, respectively; the ADSO of yield for T1, T2, and T3 was 0.19, 0.36, and 0.22 ton.ha^-1, respectively. Therefore, AquaCrop showed a high error for WUE when water stress was increased and crop was in its initial crop growth.

Evapotranspiration variations (ET₀) were investigated and analyzed using Minitab16 software for the 2010-2019 period using the Nizab system's data in Yazd province, and then ET₀ was predicted until 2027. Based on the results, the increase of ET₀ in cities of Yazd province was affected by the enhancement in wind speed and weather temperature, and the decrease in relative humidity from 2010 to 2019. To determine the appropriate model, Ardakan, Abarkooh, and Taft cities were selected as a representative in each climatic group, and ET₀ data for the years 2010 to 2015 were considered as the input data of the software and ET₀ data for the years from 2016 to 2019 were used to validate the determined model. The prediction of the determined models showed an increasing trend of ET₀ for cold seasons in Ardakan and Abarkoh by 2027. Also, the model prediction showed a decreasing trend of ET₀ for hot seasons in Taft by 2027. Also, the ET0 will not change significantly in cold seasons. In Abarkoh and Ardakan cities, autumn-spring crops such as wheat and in Taft city, spring-summer crops such as sunflower will be more affected by ET₀ variations.