DESENVOLVIMENTO TERRITORIAL E PERÍMETROS IRRIGADOS: AVALIAÇÃO DAS POLÍTICAS GOVERNAMENTAIS IMPLANTADAS NOS PERÍMETROS IRRIGADOS BEBEDOURO E NILO COELHO EM PETROLINA (PE).

Vários autores apontam haver uma série de particularidades nos diferentes perímetros de irrigação que fazem com que a sua dinâmica seja afetada. Neste sentido, este trabalho procura analisar as distinções existentes no interior de diferentes perímetros de irrigação, através do estudo de caso dos Perímetros Irrigados Nilo Coelho e Bebedouro, ambos situados em Petrolina (PE). Apesar de em cada perímetro implantado pela Codevasf existir “áreas de empresas” e “áreas de pequenos produtores”, este trabalho foi dirigido ao estudo destes últimos. De um modo geral, pode-se dizer que, apesar dos problemas enfrentados pelos pequenos produtores em ambos os perímetros, os do Perímetro Irrigado Senador Nilo Coelho apresentam-se mais aptos ao cultivo de frutas irrigadas, se comparados aos do Bebedouro.--------------------------------------------Several authors indicate to exist a series of particularities in the different irrigation perimeters that make that his dynamics is affected. In this sense, this paper search to analyze the existent distinctions inside different irrigation perimeters, through the study of case of the Nilo Coelho and Bebedouro Irrigated Perimeters, both placed in Petrolina (PE). In spite of each perimeter implanted by Codevasf to exist “companies areas” and “small farmers areas”, this papers was points to study this second one. In general, it can be said that, in spite of the problems faced by the small farmers in both perimeters, the Nilo Coelho small farmers are more capable to irrigated fruits cultivation, when compared with the Bebedouro small farmers.Pólo Petrolina-Juazeiro, Pequenos Produtores, Perímetros Irrigados Nilo Coelho e Bebedouro, Small Farmers, Irrigated Perimeters Nilo Coelho and Bebedouro, Resource /Energy Economics and Policy,

Special issue on evapotranspiration measurement and modeling

Water availability for irrigation throughout the world has been reduced in recent years due to a combination of frequent droughts and competition for water resources among agricultural, industrial, and urban users. In addition, some major agricultural areas face moderate to significant reductions of rainfall, or changes in timing of stream flow due to changes in timing of snowmelt, as a result of global climate change. Under such conditions, sophisticated irrigation water management will be required to optimize water use efficiency and maintain sufficient levels of crop productivity and quality. A key factor to achieve these targets is the estimation of actual evapotranspiration (ET). Accurate determination of ET can be a viable tool in better utilization of water resources through well-designed irrigation management programs. Reliable estimates of ET are also vital to develop criteria for in-season irrigation management, water resource allocation, long-term estimates of water supply, demand and use, design and management of water resources infrastructure, and evaluation of the effect of land use and management changes on the water balance

Special issue on evapotranspiration measurement and modeling

Water availability for irrigation throughout the world has been reduced in recent years due to a combination of frequent droughts and competition for water resources among agricultural, industrial, and urban users. In addition, some major agricultural areas face moderate to significant reductions of rainfall, or changes in timing of stream flow due to changes in timing of snowmelt, as a result of global climate change. Under such conditions, sophisticated irrigation water management will be required to optimize water use efficiency and maintain sufficient levels of crop productivity and quality. A key factor to achieve these targets is the estimation of actual evapotranspiration (ET). Accurate determination of ET can be a viable tool in better utilization of water resources through well-designed irrigation management programs. Reliable estimates of ET are also vital to develop criteria for in-season irrigation management, water resource allocation, long-term estimates of water supply, demand and use, design and management of water resources infrastructure, and evaluation of the effect of land use and management changes on the water balance

Consumer preferences and willingness to pay for organic apples

Cerda, AA (reprint author), Univ Talca, Fac Ciencias Empresariales, 2 Norte 685, Talca, Chile.This study provides marketing data regarding consumer preferences and willingness to pay for organic agricultural products in Chile. The main objectives of this study were to assess consumer willingness to pay for organic apples and to determine the main attributes that consumers look for when purchasing apples. The methodology applied to reach the first objective was the contingent valuation method using a logistic probability function and a single-bound dichotomous choice format. Additionally, this study estimates the marginal willingness to pay (WTP) of consumers for organic apples by using conjoint analysis with ranking procedures. This study was performed in the city of Talca, Chile, where a total of 400 individuals from a probability sampling were interviewed. The results of our study show that the estimation of part-worth utilities of each attribute confirms that the Fuji variety, organic method of production, sweet apples and lowest price are the most preferred levels of each attribute. However, an analysis of the relative utility index shows that price and variety are much more important to consumer choice and behavior than the method of production and flavor. Finally, our study shows a positive willingness to pay an additional 130 Chilean pesos per kilogram for organic apples and a greater preference for apples produced organically than by conventional methods. These results provide important information about market opportunities as well as policy implementation regarding the production of organic agricultural products

Development of an Automated Management System for the Traceability of Spraying in Fruit Orchads

A system for managing and monitoring agricultural labors at farm level was developed and tested in an agrochemical application. The system is constituted by an electronics box mounted on the tractor and software that acquire and analyze data from the application task. The electronics box consists of a microcontroller, a GPS, sensors, a keyboard, a SD memory reader and a LCD screen. This device is able to store in a SD’s memory the data of the position and the instantaneous speed of the tractor, the applied dose, the speed and absolute wind direction, the temperature and relative humidity in-situ. In addition it can generate alert of unfavorable climatic conditions for the agro-chemical applications. The interface to the user is software that allows generating a job order identifying the operator name, the tractor, the spraying equipment, the pesticide, the dose and the sector of application. In addition it allows analyzing the output data in graphical form, generating maps of speed, applied volume and dose. The map of the route is also drawing up on Google-Earth for a better spatial visualization. All the tasks carried out are stored in a data base administered by this software. With this tool it is possible to verify if the norms that establish environmental conditions apt for the application of pesticide are fulfilled, besides checking the variability of the dose and jumps of rows, along with reports with indices of performance of the operator. The system has been tested in two important vineyards of Chile with promissory results

USCID fourth international conference

Presented at the Role of irrigation and drainage in a sustainable future: USCID fourth international conference on irrigation and drainage on October 3-6, 2007 in Sacramento, California.Includes bibliographical references.The two-layer model of Shuttlerworth and Wallace (SW) was evaluated to estimate actual evapotranspiration (ETa) above a drip-irrigated Merlot vineyard, located in the Talca Valley, Region del Maule, Chile (35° 25' LS; 71° 32' LW ; 136m above the sea level). An automatic weather system was installed in the center of the vineyard to measure climatic variables (air temperature, relative humidity, and wind speed) and energy balance components (solar radiation, net radiation, latent heat flux, sensible heat flux, and soil heat flux) during November and December 2006. Values of ETa estimated by the SW model were tested with latent heat flux measurements obtained from an eddy-covariance system on a 30 minute time interval. Results indicated that SW model was able to predict ETa with a root mean square error (RMSE) of 0.44 mm d-1 and mean absolute error (MAE) of 0.36 mm d-1. Furthermore, SW model predicted latent heat flux with RMSE and MAE of 32 W m-2 and 19W m-1, respectively

Infra-Red thermal image analysis for grapevines

Trabajo presentado en el 18th International Symposium of the Group of International Experts of vitivinicultural Systems for CoOperation (GIESCO 2013), celebrado en Oporto del 7 al 11 de julio de 2013.-- Número fuera de serie.Infrared thermal images (IRTI) have been used for grapevine research since the early 90’s. Even though its promising results in the assessment of canopy stomatal conductance and plant water status, from the beginning and recent research publications, it has not been fully applied on a commercial scale yet. It is believed that the bottleneck for this technology is the lack of reliable automation tools for IRTI analysis. Accurate and reliable automation technique s will allow the use of this technique to assess the spatial variability of physiological processes within the canopy using infrared cameras mounted on moving vehicles, drones, octocopters or robots. Automated analysis systems are requirement of The Vineyard of The Future initiative, which is an international effort to establis h fully monitored vineyards in the most prominent viticultural and winemaking areas in the world. In this work, a semi-automated IRTI analyses performed using a code written in MATLAB® for estimate dry and wet references excluding non-leaf temperatures was compared with evaporimeter (EvapoSensor, Skye Instruments Ltd, Powys, UK) measurements used to provide dry and wet references from IRTIs. Results obtained from this research (grapevines cv. Tempranillo) showed good and statistically significant correlations between temperatur e references obtained from IRTI analysis and measured values. This work constitutes one additional step forward to the implementation of thermal imaging as an automated routine technique for physiological vineyard assess ment from proximal sensing and unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) platforms.The research leading to this report was supported by the Spanish project “STRESSIMAGING HPRN-CT-2002-00254” and Chilean projects CONICYT (Nº 79090035) and Programa de Investigación sobre Adaptación de la Agricultura al Cambio Climático - PIEI (Universidad de Talca).Peer Reviewe

Water: tools and functions to estimate actual evapotranspiración using Land Surface Energy Balance Models in R

The crop water requirement is a key factor in the agricultural process. It is usually estimated throughout actual evapotranspiration (ETa). This parameter is the key to develop irrigation strategies, to improve water use efficiency and to understand hydrological, climatic, and ecosystem processes. Currently, it is calculated with classical methods, which are difficult to extrapolate, or with land surface energy balance models (LSEB), such as METRIC and SEBAL, which are based on remote sensing data. This paper describes water, an open implementation of LSEB. The package provides several functions to estimate the parameters of the LSEB equation from satellite data and proposes a new object class to handle weather station data. One of the critical steps in METRIC is the selection of “cold” and “hot” pixels, which water solves with an automatic method. The water package can process a batch of satellite images and integrates most of the already published sub-models for METRIC. Although water implements METRIC, it will be expandable to SEBAL and others in the near future. Finally, two different procedures are demonstrated using data that is included in water package.EEA MendozaFil: Olmedo, Guillermo Federico. Instituto Nacional de Tecnología Agropecuaria (INTA). Estación Experimental Agropecuaria Mendoza; ArgentinaFil: Ortega Farias, Samuel. Universidad de Talca. Centro de Investigación y Transferencia en Riego y Agroclimatología; ChileFil: Fuente Saiz, Daniel de la. Universidad de Talca. Centro de Investigación y Transferencia en Riego y Agroclimatología; ChileFil: Fonseca Luengo, David. Universidad de Talca. Centro de Investigación y Transferencia en Riego y Agroclimatología; ChileFil: Fuentes Peñailillo, Fernando. Universidad de Talca. Centro de Investigación y Transferencia en Riego y Agroclimatología; Chil