Adoption of water-conservation irrigation practices could potentially reduce water and energy use and increase profitability, as well as protect the environment. Precision irrigation consisting of soil sensors (SS) for irrigation scheduling and variable rate irrigation (VRI) was compared with conventional uniform irrigation (URI). The study was conducted in South Alabama during the 2018 and 2019 corn growing seasons. The SS-VRI and URI treatments spanned the length of the field and were compared across five different management zones (MZ) that exhibited soil and terrain differences. Soil water tension sensors were installed on each MZ-treatment area to monitor hourly soil water changes. Results showed that on the two zones covering 55% of the study field, MZ 1 and MZ 2, the SS-VRI treatment, on a two-year average, resulted in 26% less irrigation water applied compared to the URI treatment; however, there were no statistical differences between yields or yield variability among treatments. Even though in MZ 4, there was not a substantial difference in irrigation water applied among treatments, soil sensors increased the precision of irrigation rate determination during the peak of high crop water demand. Findings from this study showed that as rainfall amount and distribution change over a crop growing period, soil sensor-based irrigation scheduling could be used to prevent over- or under irrigation. With proper management, the combination of soil sensors and VRI provides farmers with the opportunity to reduce water use, while increasing or maintaining yields; however, farmers must consider the investment and operating costs relative to the benefits.

采用节水灌溉做法可能会减少水和能源的使用，提高盈利能力，同时保护环境。将用于灌溉调度和可变速率灌溉 (VRI) 的土壤传感器 (SS) 组成的精确灌溉与传统的均匀灌溉 (URI) 进行了比较。该研究是在 2018 年和 2019 年玉米生长季节在南阿拉巴马州进行的。SS-VRI 和 URI 处理跨越了田地的长度，并在表现出土壤和地形差异的五个不同管理区 (MZ) 进行了比较。每个 MZ 处理区域都安装了土壤水分张力传感器，以监测每小时的土壤水分变化。结果表明，在覆盖 55% 研究区域的两个区域，MZ 1 和 MZ 2，SS-VRI 治疗，平均两年，与 URI 处理相比，灌溉用水量减少了 26%；然而，处理之间的产量或产量变异性之间没有统计学差异。尽管在 MZ 4 中，不同处理之间的灌溉用水量没有显着差异，但土壤传感器提高了作物高需水高峰期灌溉率确定的精度。这项研究的结果表明，随着作物生长期间降雨量和分布的变化，基于土壤传感器的灌溉调度可用于防止灌溉过度或灌溉不足。通过适当的管理，土壤传感器和 VRI 的结合为农民提供了减少用水量的机会，同时增加或保持产量；但是，农民必须考虑与收益相关的投资和运营成本。