Published in Scientific Papers. Series E. Land Reclamation, Earth Observation & Surveying, Environmental Engineering, Vol. VII
Written by Elisabeth PROBST, Philipp KLUG, Wolfram MAUSER, Diana DOGARU, Tobias HANK
The Romanian Plain is dominated by intensively used, fertile cropland with large agricultural potentials. Nutrient supply and water availability are major determinants of crop yields. Achievable yield is strongly influenced by fertilization and irrigation - depending on the local conditions. Increasing water use efficiency (WUE) is an important objective for distributing the limited water for irrigation. We present a study which determines scenario-based yields and WUE of winter wheat and maize throughout the Romanian Plain (2015–2017). The study compares results of the biophysical crop growth model PROMET with data on actual plant development derived from Sentinel-2 time series. Actual crop yields and WUE are compared to their potentials which are determined by assuming optimal fertilization for both rainfed and optimal irrigated agriculture. The winter wheat simulations show that, under rain-fed conditions, optimal fertilization can more than double yields and maximize WUE, whereas irrigation hardly affects yield. Since maize is more affected by water stress in the Romanian Plain, optimal fertilization can double maize yields and maximize WUE under irrigation only.
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