Modelling water requirements of greenhouse spinach for irrigation management purposes

Estimating water requirements of plants cultivated in greenhouse environments is crucial, both for the design of greenhouse irrigation systems and the improvement of irrigation scheduling. Spinach is one of the main vegetables sold as 'ready-to-eat' bagged produce; it is very sensitive to water stress and thus requires accurate irrigation. In this work, a water balance model simulating the daily irrigation need for greenhouse crops based on the FAO-56 'single crop coefficient' method was designed and applied (FAO-56-GH). Two experiments were conducted on two spinach varieties grown in pots in different periods. For each experiment, four nitrogen treatments were considered. Irrigation was managed weighing the pots every day, and restoring soil water to field capacity. Crop coefficient (K-c) values were calibrated using data of the first experiment, the model was successively validated using the second dataset. Results showed a good model performance both in the validation and calibration periods (R-2 = 0.80 and 0.84, root mean square error (RMSE) = 0.41 and 0.21 mm day(-1), Nash-Sutcliffe efficiency (NSE) = 0.78 and 0.83). Analysis of variance ( ANOVA) test revealed a scarce dependence of irrigation needs to nitrogen treatments. This study suggests the possibility of adopting the FAO-56-GH model with site-specific K-c to improve irrigation management and planning in greenhouse environments.