Irrigation necessity for common bean in central region of Rio Grande do Sul

The lack of knowledge about the likelihood of occurence of bad weather is a problem for production planning of the bean. This study aimed to determine the values of water depth and number of irrigations required for common bean at different sowing times, considering the storage capacity of available water (CAD) of the main soils of central region of Rio Grande do Sul. The cycle simulation was performed using the thermal time in ten sowing times (ES) and in each year of the historical series of meteorological data for the period between 1968 and 2006. Irrigation was simulated for 13 soils of the region covered by meteorological station of Santa Maria, which were grouped in six groups. To simulate the irrigation, four handlings were used: 0.8, 0.7, 0.6 and 0.5 corresponding to the maximum depletion of 20, 30, 40 and 50% of CAD, respectively. The variation of soil water content was determined by soil water balance, considering the irrigation. The greater demand for irrigation occurred in last sowing times of the main crop season and lowest at the begining of the main and second crop season. For the 90% probability of occurrence of the water depth ranged between 32 and 143 mm and the number of irrigations between 3 and 20 during cycle.