Patent ID: 11985925

Abstract:
Crops for human and animal consumption of many types are well known by their respective growers. Years of experience in the field provide the grower knowledge about a range of conditions that lead to the full spectrum of crop yields and crop quality, and each grower creates a store of knowledge which they can combine with the available measures of those conditions. This disclosure provides a method for indicating the onset of water stress in one or more plants located in a soil the roots of which are within the measurement zone of a soil moisture sensor located in the soil, by determining from representative data of the daily soil water usage and the evapotranspiration value in the region of the crop each day for a predetermined number of 24 hour periods consecutively prior to a stress determination day d by calculating the line of best fit for the daily crop water usage and recorded ETo for the predetermined number of consecutive 24 hour periods. Calculating the difference of each daily crop water usage from the line of best fit. Determining the statistical standard deviation of the differences of each daily crop water usage value from the line of best fit. Determine a predicted crop water usage for day d using the ETo for day d and the line-of-best fit. Determining whether the difference between the daily crop water usage for day d and the predicted crop water usage for day d, and if the difference is equal to or more than the value V, where the value V is an amount of deviation from the mean where V in an example is the standard deviation. Indicating that a period of water stress of the one or more plants has been entered as of day d to thereby control elements of a crop management arrangement to irrigate or not to irrigate automatically with no human intervention.