Water Management in Horticultural Crops

Criteria for scheduling irrigation

• The optimum scheduling of irrigation should be based on crop needs to avoid both over and under-irrigation and to ensure high water use efficiency.
• A thorough understanding of the soil-water - atmosphere relationship is essential for proper scheduling of irrigation, since irrigation needs of crops are decided by the evaporative demand of the atmosphere, soil water status and plant characteristics.
  
• The criteria for scheduling irrigation, as attempted from time to time, may be grouped into three categories, namely,
  
1. Plant criteria,
2. Criteria based on soil water status and
3. Meteorological criteria.