Seasonal Effects on Soil Drying After Irrigation

Abstract

A study was made to determine how the evaporation rate from a bare Adelanto loam soil in Phoenix changes with season and with time since the last irrigation. The evaporation rates were determined by precision lysimeters in a bare field, with measurements being taken in every month of the year for at least a week after irrigation. The data exhibited a cosine-shaped curve, with a maximum evaporation rate of about 5 mm/day in summer and a minimum rate of about 2 mm/day in winter. By the seventh day, seasonal effects virtually disappear, and the evaporation rate is the same in both summer and winter, being about 2 mm/day after the 7th day and about 0.75 mm/day after the 21st day. It is generally accepted that soil dries in 3 stages, and the transition between the 1st and 2nd stages occurs when atmospheric conditions are no longer critical. In previous laboratory studies of soil drying, with constant atmospheric conditions, stage 1 was easily distinguished from stage II, and these results correlated closely with the equations of Gardner and Hillel. The individual drying curves of this field study were qualitatively different from the laboratory studies and did not confirm the predictions of the equations, suggesting that diurnal variations in temperature and other meteorological parameters have caused the difference.