There are more than 300,000 acres of permitted citrus within the Peace River Basin. Although the citrus trees receive about 52 inches of annual rainfall, they still require supplemental irrigation. The amount of supplemental irrigation depends on the amount of effective rainfall. Effective rainfall is rainfall which is beneficially used by the tree.
Effective rainfall is an important tool which growers and the District use to manage irrigation.
Recent studies indicate the amount of effective rainfall for Florida may be underestimated, causing growers to over irrigate. This project will quantify the amount of effective rainfall and provide a tool to estimate effective rainfall on ridge citrus production which will help growers improve their irrigation management and conserve water. The project is expected to be completed by Spring 2004. These stresses occurred no matter how frequent irrigation was applied. It is believed that the problem was not the quantity of the water, but the wetted area.