engleski

Preliminary research of soil water availability and heat stress

On the eastern part of Croatian 2012. year was characterized as extremely dry and major yield losses of spring crops, especially maize, were detected. After that conclusions have been drawn that if we want quality production it is necessary to build major irrigation systems. Drought was mentioned as the only cause of the decrease in yield and damage from heat stress was not considered in detail. Although high temperature stress is usually associated with drought, extremely high temperatures and low relative humidity can cause equal or even greater damage to the primary organic production. If the high temperature (above 350C) matches with pollination of maize, soybeans and sunflowers in our climate, it will result in poor pollen production and viability and significant decrease in yield. In order to reliably determine the indicators of a lack of water in the soil and to realistically understand the problem, we set the automatic measuring device Datalogger Decagon’s 5TE, with two measuring probes to monitor humidity and temperature at two depths (30 and 60 cm). The results of measuring the humidity and temperature of soil under the maize in the Gat area are showing the long-term heat stress, but not the water stress, because the content of available water in soil (percentage by volume) was significantly above the point of permanent wilting.

heat stress ; maize ; availability of water ; data logger

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