DEVELOPING IRRIGATION MANAGEMENT STRATEGIES FOR SOYBEAN PRODUCTION IN HUMID REGIONS OF THE SOUTHERN US

Managing irrigation in the southeastern U.S. in soybean production remains a challenge inasmuch soils are spatially extremely variable and weather conditions vary considerably from year to year. Growers need support of technical infrastructure to meet the right decision about the appropriate timing and spatial distribution of irrigation water in order to avoid over- and underirrigation. The goal of this study is to improve producers' irrigation efficiency and increase soybean yields by developing knowledge on field soil water and biomass production processes to arrive at a smartphone application that allows soybean farmers and crop consultants to decide whether a particular field or a zone in that field needs to be irrigated. The particular objectives are to 1) create an easy-to-use, low-cost regional irrigation scheduling tool for soybeans, 2) demonstrate a medium-cost irrigation scheduling tool that incorporates automated on-site data collection for soybeans (new version of MOIST) and 3) develop a framework for using variable rate irrigation (VRI) for soybeans.