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Water requirements of irrigated mango orchards in

northeast Brazil

Article  in  Agricultural Water Management · February 2003

DOI: 10.1016/S0378-3774(02)00083-5 · Source: RePEc

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 Agricultural Water Management 58 (2003) 241–254

Water requirements of irrigated mango orchards

in northeast Brazil
Pedro V. de Azevedo*, Bernardo B. da Silva, Vicente P.R. da Silva
Department of Atmospheric Sciences, Federal University of Paraı́ba, Av. Aprı́gio Veloso,
882 Bodocongó, 58109-970 Campina Grande, PB, Brazil
Accepted 20 June 2002

Abstract

Data of a field experiment carried out at Petrolina-PE, a semi-arid region of northeast Brazil, were
used to evaluate the evapotranspiration during the 1999 fruiting cycle of a mango orchard. Sensors for
net radiation, two levels dry and wet bulbs air temperature and wind speed were installed above a
mango tree in a micrometeorological tower. Soil heat flux sensors were installed at 2 cm below soil
surface and soil moisture content was measured by sets of tensiometers installed each at 20 cm from
the surface down to 220 cm soil depth. The individual mango tree evapotranspiration was obtained by
two methods: Bowen ratio-energy balance (BREB) and soil water balance (SWB). Daily mango
orchard evapotranspiration increased slowly from 3.1 mm per day at the beginning of the experi-
mental period (middle July) to 4.9 mm per day at the maximum growth period of the fruit. Then, it
decreased to reach a 4.1 mm per day value, approximately at the full maturation fruit. The
accumulated mango orchard water consumption for the whole productive cycle was 551.6 and
555.1 mm by the soil water and Bowen ratio-energy balance methods, respectively. For the
experimental climate conditions, the soil water balance method was shown to be more efficient
in the measurement of the mango orchard daily evapotranspiration when compared to the energy
balance method, particularly when obtained for time period equal to or greater than 7 days, with a
percentage error of estimation of daily crop evapotranspiration around 7%. Also, in the study region,
the mango orchard water requirements are not constant throughout the productive cycle. However, it
can be estimated by the crop coefficient (Kc) obtained as a function of the days after flowering (DAF)
as: Kc ¼ 0:36 þ 0:009ðDAFÞ  4  105 ðDAFÞ2 . On average, the percentage error associated to the
estimation of the latent heat flux increased from 17% for low to 38% for high atmospheric energy
demand with intermediate values, around 25%, for moderate available atmospheric energy.
# 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Crop coefficient; Evapotranspiration; Soil water balance; Bowen ratio-energy balance; Irrigation

*
Corresponding author. Tel.: þ55-83-310-1199; fax: þ55-83-310-1202.
E-mail address: pvieira@dca.ufpb.br (P.V. de Azevedo).

0378-3774/02/$ – see front matter # 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.
PII: S 0 3 7 8 - 3 7 7 4 ( 0 2 ) 0 0 0 8 3 - 5
242 P.V. de Azevedo et al. / Agricultural Water Management 58 (2003) 241–254

1. Introduction

Measurement of crop evapotranspiration becomes very difficult when the plants have well-
developed root system such as the adult fruit trees. In these situations, the use of lysimeters or
evapotranspirometers also becomes very difficult. The studies by Evans et al. (1993), Oliveira
et al. (1993), Castel (1994), Sepaskhah and Kashefipour (1995), Ferreira et al. (1996) and
Michelakis et al. (1996) are among the few related to water requirements of fruit plantations.
However, despite the great commercial and nutritious value of its fruit, almost no field
research has been done on mango orchards, particularly in relation to water consumption.
Soares and Costa (1995) observed that 68% of the mango tree roots are of absorption and
86% of the supporting roots are located at a radius of 0.90–2.60 m soil surface belt from the
plant trunk and in the soil layer from 0 to 1.20 m depth. They also observed that 65% of the
absorption and 56% of the supporting roots are located in the soil depth down to 0.60 m.
The optimum leaf area for an ideal development of mango fruit depends upon variety,
photosynthesis efficiency and number of available leaves in the phenological phase from
budding to fruit formation (Reddy and Singh, 1991). The mango tree, when 10–15 years
old, reaches 15 m height (Garcia and Valdivia, 1997).
The lack of information on crop coefficient (Kc) for fruit orchards has leaded growers in
the irrigated areas of the middle reaches of San Francisco River Valley to use citrus Kc
values in the water management of mango tree plantations and grapevine crops. Such a
practice has increased costs of production and reduced the quality of the fruits (Soares and
Costa, 1995). Also, the expansion of irrigated mango areas in that region has caused several
problems with mango fruit diseases.
Most of the studies on the use of above canopy Bowen ratio-energy balance (BREB) and/
or soil water balance (SWB) methods for estimating crop evapotranspiration has dealt with
short and full cover canopies (Brakke et al., 1978; Lhomme et al., 1994; Malek and
Bingham, 1993; Clark et al., 1996; Mickson et al., 1997; Phersson and Petterson, 1997;
Mastrorilli et al., 1998) while fruit tree orchards have a tall and partly cover canopy, which
makes the application of the BREB and SWB methods more difficult. Also, in semi-arid
regions, factors like topography, wind speed regime and local microclimate make the
surface energy flux measurements very difficult. Despite those difficulties, the BREB and
SWB methods have been successfully used with fruit trees like pears (Ferreira et al., 1996),
coffee (Gutiérrez and Meinzer, 1994) and others.
The objective of this study was to determine the daily water requirements throughout the
productive cycle of a mango tree orchard (Mangı́fera indica L.) variety ‘Tommy Atkins’,
grown in the soil and climate conditions of the middle reaches of San Francisco River
Valley at northeast Brazil.

2. Materials

2.1. Characteristics of the experimental site

This study was conducted at the Bebedouro Experimental Station of the Brazilian
Organization for Agriculture and Animal Research (Embrapa Semi-Árido) in the semi-arid
 P.V. de Azevedo et al. / Agricultural Water Management 58 (2003) 241–254 243

region of the middle reaches of San Francisco River Valley in Petrolina-PE, Brazil
(latitude: 098090 S; longitude: 408220 W; altitude: 365.5 m), during the period from June
to November 1999. The region has a semi-arid climate (BSwh’ according to the Köppen
climatic classification), with the following annual climatic averages: air temperature
(Ta ¼ 26:2 8C, s ¼ 0:9 8C); relative humidity (RH ¼ 65:7%, s ¼ 5:4%); annual rainfall
(r ¼ 535:8 mm, s ¼ 180:3 mm); sunshine (n ¼ 2700 h, s ¼ 206 h); class A pan evapora-
tion (Eca ¼ 2694 mm, s ¼ 206 mm); wind speed (U ¼ 2:3 m s1). The region also
presents an irregular rainfall regime with a rainy season period between January and
April. The soil of the field site is classified as Latossoil Red-Yellow with groundwater table
at 2.5 m soil depth. The physical and hydraulic properties of the soil are presented in
Table 1.
Field measurements were taken during the productive cycle of a 7 years old mango (M.
indica L.), variety ‘Tommy Atkins’ orchard, from 10 June to 19 November 1999. The
orchard trees had an average height of 5.2 m and were planted in February 1992, spaced of
8.0 m between rows by 5.0 m between trees (Fig. 1). The 1999 productive cycle started
with a flowering induction (application of a 4% solution of potassium and calcium nitrate)
and was divided into the following phenological stages: flowering (20 days: from 13 July to
2 August); fruit fall (40 days: from 3 August to 12 September); fruit formation (40 days:
from 13 September to 22 October); fruit maturation (20 days: from 23 October to 12
November).

2.2. Measurements and instrumentation used

The soil water negative pressure suction was monitoring using six sets of mercury
manometer tensiometers positioned as shown in Fig. 1, with porous ceramic cups installed
at 0.2, 0.4, 0.6, 0.8, 1.0, 1.2, 1.4, 1.6, 1.8, 2.0 and 2.2 m soil depths and measurements were
daily recorded at 07:00, 12:00 and 17:00 h. A trench (2.3 m depth, 1.0 m width and 2.0 m
length) was open in the experimental plot for extracting undisturbed soil samples, with
three repetitions, at the same soil depths. These soil samples were used for determining the
water retention curves and soil bulk density. A Richard’s pressure chamber was used for
determining soil water retention for pressures of 10.13, 30.39, 50.66, 70.93, 101.32, 506.62
and 1519.97 kPa. All these measures were made in the Embrapa Semi-Árido Soil
Laboratory. Another trench (0.3 m depth, 0.3 m width and 4.5 m length) was open between
two trees for determining the diameter of the soil surface wetting area resulted from the
dripping irrigation.
A micrometeorological tower was mounted above a selected mango tree for installing
sensors of net radiation (Rn), incident (Ri) and reflected (Rr) solar radiation, above canopy
two levels (0.5 and 1.9 m) psychrometers (dry—Td1, Td2 and wet—Tw1, Tw2 bulbs air
temperature) and wind speed (U1, U2)—Fig. 1. Also, soil heat flux sensors were installed at
0.02 m below soil surface. During experimental period, the leaf area index (LAI) was
evaluated three times by measuring width and length of five samples of 100 leaves. The
leaves samples were selected randomly in the bottom, middle and top of the canopy of a
representative plant. Later, this leaf area information was used to evaluate the LAI
throughout the mango orchard productive cycle. The sensors of net radiation, incident
and reflected solar radiation, dry and wet bulbs air temperature, soil heat flux and wind
 244
P.V. de Azevedo et al. / Agricultural Water Management 58 (2003) 241–254
Table 1
Physical properties of the soil and van Genuchten equation parameters for the field site at Petrolina-PE, Brazil

Soil Soil physical properties van Genuchten parameters

layer (cm) 3
ra (g cm ) Sand (%) Silt (%) Clay (%) a (m1) m N yr (cm3 cm3) ys (cm3 cm3) K0 (cm h1)

0–20 1.62 81 13 6 0.002 0.694 3.264 0.05 0.13 3.93

20–40 1.58 74 12 14 0.132 0.373 1.595 0.05 0.55 3.97
40–60 1.56 75 9 16 0.003 0.627 2.677 0.06 0.17 6.77
60–80 1.49 67 15 18 0.025 0.443 1.794 0.06 0.29 6.65
80–100 1.58 72 9 19 0.013 0.419 1.722 0.07 0.23 5.21
100–120 1.54 67 11 22 0.011 0.440 1.784 0.07 0.24 4.09
120–140 1.46 63 14 23 0.006 0.496 1.985 0.07 0.20 3.22
140–160 1.62 70 10 20 0.013 0.455 1.836 0.07 0.31 3.89
160–180 1.49 72 7 21 0.019 0.431 1.756 0.07 0.38 1.72
180–200 1.58 74 7 19 0.022 0.471 1.890 0.09 0.50 3.33

yr, ys are the residual and saturation soil water content, ra is the soil apparent density and K0 is the saturated soil hydraulic conductivity.
 P.V. de Azevedo et al. / Agricultural Water Management 58 (2003) 241–254 245

Fig. 1. View of the field site at the Bebedouro Experimental Station of Embrapa Semi-Árido, at Petrolina-PE,
Brazil.

speed were connected to a data acquisition system (Datalogger 21 of Campbell Scientific
Inc.) programmed for collecting data once every 5 s and storage averages for every 10 min.
Weekly, always on Mondays, a storage module was used for transferring data stored in the
datalogger memory to a microcomputer. Also, once a week, the radiometers, psychrom-
eters and tensiometers were calibrated.

3. Methods

During the experimental period (10 June–9 November 1999) the mango orchard was
daily irrigated using drippers with a water volume, Vw (liters per plant) of:
Eca  Kt  Kc  Ap
Vw ¼ (1)
Ei
where Eca is the ‘‘class A’’ pan evaporation, Kt ¼ 0:75 is the pan coefficient, Kc ¼ 1:0 is the
constant crop coefficient, Ap ¼ 40 m2 is the maximum soil surface area covered by a plant
246 P.V. de Azevedo et al. / Agricultural Water Management 58 (2003) 241–254

canopy, Ei ¼ 0:926 is the irrigation system efficiency. Then, the daily irrigation was
obtained by I ðmmÞ ¼ Vow /Aw where Aw ¼ 22:4 m2 is the irrigation soil wetting area.

3.1. Soil water balance

The SWB was made in the soil layer between surface and the maximum depth of mango
tree roots (about 2.0 m soil depth). SWB was obtained as:
r þ I  Dd ðor Cr Þ  DSM  R  ETc ¼ 0 (2)
where r is the rainfall, I the irrigation, Dd (or Cr) the soil deep drainage or capillary rise,
DSM the storage soil moisture change, R the surface runoff and ETc is the crop
evapotranspiration. All terms of Eq. (2) are expressed in ml per time units. The surface
runoff was neglected once the experimental site had flat topography and r was measured at
the meteorological station (Fig. 1). Daily irrigation was obtained as described by Eq. (1).
The flux of water crossing the bottom of the soil layer (deep drainage or capillary rise, Dd
(or Cr)) was obtained as follows:



@ft
Dd ðor Cr Þ ¼  KðyÞ (3)
@z


where KðyÞ is the mean soil hydraulic conductivity, @ft =@z the vertical gradient of
hydraulic potential, ft the total soil water potential obtained by the tensiometric measure-
ments and z is the soil depth.
The van Genuchten (1980) parametric functions were used to obtain soil water retention
function as:
ys  yr
y ¼ yr þ (4)
½1 þ jafm jn m
where yr and ys are residual and saturation soil water contents, respectively in cm3 cm3,
fm the soil matrix potential in cm of water, a, n and m are empirical constants. The
hydraulic conductivity for unsaturated soil, K(y), was determined as:

KðyÞ ¼ K0 $l ½1  ð1  $1=m Þm 2 (5)

where K0 is the saturated soil hydraulic conductivity, m ¼ 1  1/n, $ ¼ ðy  yr Þ=ðys  yr Þ
and l ¼ 0:5 (Mualem, 1976) for most of the soils.
Considering that the soil water content was obtained for constant soil layers from the
surface (z ¼ 0) down to the bottom of the measurements soil depth (z ¼ l), the storage soil
moisture (SM) was determined as:
Z L " #
X
n1
SML ¼ yðzÞ dz ¼ 0:50 yðz0 Þ þ yðzi Þ þ 0:50 yðzn Þ Dz (6)
0 i¼1
where y is the average soil layer moisture, in cm3 cm3 and Dz the thickness of soil layer, in
cm, considering that yðz0 Þ ¼ yðz1 Þ and yðzl Þ ¼ yðzn Þ. Then, the soil moisture storage
change was obtained by:

DSM ¼ SMt  SMt1 (7)

 P.V. de Azevedo et al. / Agricultural Water Management 58 (2003) 241–254 247

where SMt and SMt1 are the storage soil moisture at time instants t and t  1, respectively.
Daily crop evapotranspiration (ETc) estimated by Eq. (2) was corrected by a factor:
Cf ¼ Ap =Aw ¼ 0:56.
The daily absolute error, e (%), associated to the soil water balance determination of ETc
was obtained as (Mickson et al., 1997):
P P P
½SM0 þ tj¼0 rj  tj¼0 ðDd ðor Cr ÞÞj  tj¼0 ðETc Þj   SMf
e ð%Þ ¼ (8)
STf
where SM0 is the initial soil moisture storage (mm), SMf the soil moisture storage at time t
(mm), rj the daily rainfall and/or irrigation (mm), Dd (or Cr) the daily deep drainage and/or
capillary rise (mm), and (ETc)j is the daily mango orchard evapotranspiration (mm).

3.2. Bowen ratio-energy balance

Assuming equality between the turbulent diffusion coefficients of sensible (Kh) and
latent (Kw) heat fluxes and ð@T=@ZÞ=ð@ea =@ZÞ  DT=Dea , the latent heat fluxes (LE, in
W m2), based on Bowen ratio (b ¼ H=LE ffi g DT=Dea ), was obtained as (Mastrorilli
et al., 1998):

Rn  G
LE ¼  (9)
ð1 þ g DTÞ=Dea
where Rn (W m2) is the net radiation, G (W m2) the soil heat flux, g (kPa 8C1) the
psychometric factor, DT ¼ T2  T1 (8C) and Dea ¼ e2  e1 (kPa) are temperature and
vapor pressure of air at two levels above orchard canopy, respectively. The latent heat flux
was divided by L ðevaporation latent heatÞ ¼ 595  0:51Ta (cal g1) in order to obtain the
evapotranspiration based on the Bowen ratio-energy balance method—ETc (BREB).
Considering a 4% error in the measurements of net radiation and soil heat flux, Angus
and Watts (1984) showed that the absolute error associated to the Bowen ratio-energy
balance estimation of the latent heat flux (LE) may be given as:

0:04ð1 þ bÞ þ 1:04eb

eLE ¼

ðRn  GÞ (10)
ð1 þ b þ ebÞð1 þ bÞ

where eb is the Bowen ratio absolute error obtained as:

e DTu e DTs

eb ¼ bð1 þ bÞ

þ
(11)
DTu DTs

where e DTu and e DTs are the absolute errors associated with the determination of the dry
and wet bulbs temperature, which are equal to 0.05 and 0.02 8C, respectively, DTu and DTs
are the difference of the dry and wet bulbs temperature at levels 1 and 2.

3.3. Orchard evapotranspiration and crop coefficient

Daily reference evapotranspiration (ET0) was obtained by the Penman–Monteith’s

model for a stomata resistance and grass height of 70 s m1 and 0.12 m, respectively
248 P.V. de Azevedo et al. / Agricultural Water Management 58 (2003) 241–254

(Allen et al., 1994):

0:408 DðRn  GÞ þ g½ð900U2 Þ=ðT þ 273Þðes  ea Þ
ET0 ¼ (12)
D þ gð1 þ 0:34U2 Þ
where Rn and G are daily net radiation and soil heat flux in MJ m2, respectively, D the
slope of the saturation vapor pressure curve (kPa 8C1) and U2 (m s1) is the average daily
wind speed at 2 m above soil surface, Rn, D, g and (es  ea ) were estimated by the
standardized equations proposed by Allen et al. (1994), and measurements taken at the
Bebedouro Meteorological Station; G was presumed to be 0 in a 24 h time period. The crop
coefficient was obtained as Kc ¼ ETc /ET0.

4. Results and discussion

4.1. Field experimental aspects

A 19 m2 wetting surface area was used for determining the irrigation water amount to be
applied to the soil which varied from 4.5 mm per day in the week period from 13 to 19 July,
to 5.9 mm per day in the period from 26 October to 1 November. The maximum and
minimum applied irrigation water amount occurred in the periods of high and low
evaporative rates, respectively. The groundwater table remained at 2.5 m below soil
surface while the major root concentration occurred in the soil layer between surface
and 1.4 m soil depth.
The observed monthly average values of the climatic variables for the experimental
site are presented in Table 2. The air temperature for the experimental period was
lower than the climatological value of 26.5 8C, with an average value of 25.1 8C. Wind
speed increased from July to September and then, decreased toward the end of the
observational period, with an average value of 2.75 m s 1, for the whole experimental
period. The maximum mean daily values of net radiation, sunshine and wind speed
occurred in September while the mean daily values of the class A pan evaporation

Table 2
The average monthly values of daily air temperature (Ta), relative humidity (RH), ‘‘class A’’ pan evaporation
(Eca), sunshine (n), wind speed (U) and accumulated rainfall (r) at the Bebedouro Experimental Station,
Petrolina-PE, Brazil

Month Ta (8C) RH (%) Eca (mm per day) Rn (W m2) n (h) U (m s1) r (mm)

June 25.6 59 6.4 320 7.8 2.32 0.0

July 24.5 60 7.0 313 7.8 2.95 2.1
August 23.2 70 7.3 304 7.7 3.10 2.3
September 25.6 66 7.8 385 8.7 3.21 30.4
October 25.5 69 8.1 375 7.4 2.66 18.1
November 26.1 69 7.3 370 6.3 2.29 100.4
Average 25.1 66 7.3 345 7.6 2.37
Accumulated 153.3
 P.V. de Azevedo et al. / Agricultural Water Management 58 (2003) 241–254 249

increased from 6.4 mm per day in June to reach a maximum value of 8.1 mm per day in
October.
The mango orchard LAI was 12.9, 15.0 and 14.1 for representative days of flowering
(1 July), fruit fall (1 September) and fruit maturation (1 November) phenological stages,
respectively. The soil projected area of the mango tree canopy (Ac) remained approxi-
mately constant throughout the experimental period, around 34 m2, corresponding to 85%
of the soil surface area available for each plant. For a circular lemon tree canopy, Daamem
et al. (1999) found a soil projected area corresponding to 39% of the soil surface area
available for the plant. The soil electrical conductivity changed from 0.14 dS m1, in the
soil layer of 0–20 cm to 4.0 dS m1 in the soil layer of 180–200 cm, with a soil profile
average value of 1.47 dS m1. du Plessis (1985) found similar values for citrus.

4.2. Evapotranspiration of the mango orchard

The mango orchard evapotranspiration obtained by the soil water balance method—ETc
(SWB), increased from 3.1 mm per day in the week period (13–19 July) to 6.7 mm per day
at the end of the fruits formation stage (5–11 October). After this date, it decreased to reach
3.5 mm per day at the last week of the fruit maturation stage (9–15 November; Table 3).

Table 3
Soil water change (DSM), irrigation (I), rainfall (r), deep drainage or capillarity rise (Dd (or Cr)), and average
daily evapotranspiration obtained by the Bowen ratio-energy balance, ETc (BREB) and soil water balance, ETc
(SWB) methods for the 1999 mango orchard

Observational DSM I (mm) r (mm) Dd (or Cr) ETc (BREB) ETc (SWB)a
period (mm) (mm) (mm per day) (mm per day)

13–19 July 10.58 31.19 0.7 0.39 3.9 3.1

20–26 July 12.60 36.18 0.3 2.91 4.3 3.0
27 July–2 August 8.29 42.06 0.0 2.30 4.2 4.5
3–9 August 0.50 37.02 0.6 12.66 3.3 3.5
10–16 August 7.11 34.22 0.0 13.16 4.1 4.0
17–23 August 3.92 43.96 0.1 13.72 3.8 3.8
24–30 August 1.85 42.28 0.0 17.42 5.2 3.3
31 August–6 September 6.83 45.53 0.0 11.31 4.6 5.9
7–13 September 5.82 29.51 0.0 7.06 4.6 4.0
14–20 September 10.75 25.03 0.0 4.20 4.3 4.5
21–27 September 0.62 19.04 17.0 1.74 4.1 4.8
28 September–4 October 1.68 30.46 0.0 3.58 5.5 3.6
5–11 October 5.71 41.38 2.2 2.18 4.9 6.7
12–18 October 3.36 33.99 4.5 1.85 4.4 5.7
19–25 October 0.78 39.93 0.0 1.01 5.1 5.7
26 October–1 November 3.25 40.99 3.5 2.41 3.2 5.5
2–8 November 2.46 25.37 0.0 1.62 4.6 3.7
9–15 November 0.39 28.34 0.0 0.73 5.2 3.5
Total 0.84 626.47 28.9 99.46 555.1 551.6
Daily average 4.4 4.4
a
ETc values were corrected by a factor: Cf ¼ Ap =Aw ¼ 0:56.
250 P.V. de Azevedo et al. / Agricultural Water Management 58 (2003) 241–254

The soil deep drainage (Dd) reached higher values in the period from 3 to 15 August with a
maximum value of 17.4 mm per week, in the period from 24 to 30 August. These high
values of deep drainage were caused by the over irrigation applied in order to avoid any
water stress.
The mango orchard evapotranspiration throughout its productive cycle was approxi-
mately 555.0 mm, with a daily average of ETc ¼ 4:4 mm per day by both methods.
Papakiriakou and McCaughey (1991) observed that the evapotranspiration estimated by
the Bowen ratio-energy balance method—ETc (BREB) was about 5% higher than that
obtained by the soil water balance method—ETc (SWB). Table 3 also indicates that during
some periods (from 14 to 27 September and from 5 October to 1 November), ETc (SWB)
was higher than ETc (BREB). For other week periods (3–23 August) very close values of
ETc were obtained by both methods. Mickson et al. (1997) obtained similar results when
applied ETc (SWB) and ETc (BREB) approaches in soybean and pumpkin field plots.
Table 3 also shows that the total water applied to the soil throughout the productive cycle of
the mango orchard (irrigation plus rainfall ¼ 655:4 mm) was much greater than the actual
water requirement of the orchard (ETc  555:0 mm).
For the selected phenological stages of the mango orchard productive cycle, the average
daily evapotranspiration rate is presented in Table 4. For the whole study period the mean
daily evapotranspiration estimated by SWB (4.1 mm per day) was slightly lower than that
obtained by the BREB (4.3 mm per day). It was also observed that, for all phenological
stages, the SWB method underestimated ETc as compared to the BREB, probably due to
the simplifying assumptions made in the BREB method. These results are comparable to
those obtained by Malek and Bingham (1993) and Phersson and Petterson (1997).
Observed differences between the methods used for estimating mango orchard evapo-
transpiration were supposed to be a consequence of the simplifying assumptions made in
the application of the BREB method, such as: (1) small fetch in the micrometeorological
tower; (2) similarity between sensible and latent heat turbulent diffusion coefficients; (3)
non-consideration about within canopy.
Values of the mango orchard crop coefficient, obtained by the SWB method are presented
in Fig. 2 as a function of the days after flowering (DAF). This figure shows that the mango
orchard water requirement is not constant throughout its productive cycle. It also indicates that
mango orchard water requirement can be estimated by the crop coefficient (Kc) obtained as a
function of the DAF by the relation: Kc ¼ 0:36 þ 0:009ðDAFÞ  4  105 ðDAFÞ2 with
r 2 ¼ 0:79. The average crop coefficient for the mango orchard productive cycle (Kc ¼ 0:71)

Table 4
Average daily evapotranspiration obtained by the Bowen ratio-energy balance, ETc (BREB) and soil water
balance, ETc (SWB) methods for the 1999 phenological stages of the mango orchard

Phase Period ETc (BREB) (mm per day) ETc (SWB) (mm per day)

Flowering 13 July–2 August 4.1 3.5

Fruit fall 3 August–12 September 4.3 4.0
Fruit growth 13 September–22 October 4.7 4.9
Fruit maturation 23 October–12 November 4.3 4.1
Mean – 4.3 4.1
 P.V. de Azevedo et al. / Agricultural Water Management 58 (2003) 241–254 251

Fig. 2. The mango orchard crop coefficient curve (solid line) and observed weekly daily average values (filled
circles) for Petrolina-PE, Brazil.

was lower than the value used in the regional mango plantations water management
(Kc ¼ 0:75). As it can be observed in Fig. 2, the Kc changes throughout mango orchard
productive cycle follows that of the leaf area index, which reached the values of 12.9, 15.0 and
14.1 in the flowering, fruit fall and fruit maturation stages, respectively.

4.3. Error analysis

The terms of the soil water balance error analysis, associated to the determination of the
crop evapotranspiration are presented in Table 5. The highest percentage level of error was
obtained for 1-day time period with 41.7%. For time periods between 2 and 5 days, an
average soil water balance error was obtained around 18% with a slight increase from 16.4

Table 5
P
Soil water storage initial (SM P irrigation ð rj Þ,
P0) and final (SMf) time interval, accumulated rainfall and/or
accumulated deep drainage ð ðDd Þj Þ, accumulated mango orchard evapotranspiration ð ETc Þ and percentage
error (e), for the observational period (13 July–15 November 1999)
P P P
Time period (days) SM0 (mm) SMf (mm) rj (mm) ðDd Þj (mm) ETc (mm) e (%)

1 252.0 258.7 1134.9 177.7 842.6 41.7

2 252.0 258.7 1134.9 177.7 908.0 16.4
3 252.0 258.7 1134.9 177.7 905.4 17.4
5 252.0 258.7 1134.9 177.7 897.4 20.5
7 252.0 258.7 1134.9 177.7 971.3 8.0
10 252.0 258.7 1134.9 177.7 968.7 7.0
15 252.0 258.7 1134.9 177.7 968.6 7.0
252 P.V. de Azevedo et al. / Agricultural Water Management 58 (2003) 241–254

to 20.5 due probably to the discretization process used for calculating the soil moisture
storage (Eq. (6)) and the uncertainties in the tensiometers readings. For time period equal or
greater than a week (7, 10 and 15 days), the percentage error of estimation of the crop
evapotranspiration by the soil water balance method—ETc (SWB) showed a tendency to
become constant around 7%. Using the same methodology, Mickson et al. (1997) found a
percentage error in the soil water balance estimation of ETc changing from 0.5 to 45.6% as
a function of the experimental treatment conditions, which was attributed to the uncertainty
of the tensiometry measures. According to these results, the soil water balance method
showed to be efficient in the determination of the mango orchard ETc when developed for a
7-day time period. Similar order of errors in the application of the SWB method was
obtained by Trambouze et al. (1998) in a row-cropped vineyard.
For time periods less than a week the tensiometry measures may not reflect the real water
volume storage in the soil due to: (i) the long time period the instrument porous capsule
takes to get equilibrium with soil, and (ii) the tensiometers do not reveal changes in soil
moisture above field capacity, mainly in the first hours after irrigation. Then, for the soil
and climate conditions of the middle reaches of San Francisco River Valley at Petrolina-PE,
Brazil, the determination of mango orchard evapotranspiration by the soil water balance is
not efficient for time period less than a week. Papakiriakou and McCaughey (1991)
observed that the time period required for application of the soil water balance method in
the determination of ETc is 13 days for a 10% level of uncertainty while smaller probability
error occurs for time periods with less rainfall and high evaporative rate.
The errors associated to the estimation of the Bowen ratio (b) and latent heat flux (LE),
obtained by the above mango orchard energy balance method for different atmospheric
available energy are presented in Table 6. As an average, the percentage error associated to
the estimation of the latent heat flux increased from 17.0% for low to 38.0% for high
atmospheric energy demand with intermediate values around 25.0% for moderate atmo-
spheric energy demand.
The absolute error associated to the estimation of the latent heat flux was strongly
influenced by the temperature gradients and by the absolute error in the estimation of the
Bowen ratio. The greatest differences of wet bulb temperature (2.28 and 1.88 8C)
associated to the Bowen ratio rates (4.4 and 3.2%), produced the greatest errors in the latent
heat flux (35.2 and 40.9%), respectively. Otherwise, in the period of low available energy
the latent heat flux errors were the lowest for the whole analyzed period (14.0 and 20.6%).

Table 6
Bowen ratio (eb) and latent heat flux (eLE) absolute errors as a function of dry (DTs) and wet (DTu) temperature
gradients above mango orchard

Available energy Date DTs (8C) DTu (8C) eb (%) eLE (%)
2
High (Rn  350 W m ) 15 July 1999 0.76 2.28 4.4 35.2
29 August 1999 0.77 1.88 3.2 40.9
Moderate (251  Rn  349 W m2) 18 July 1999 0.42 1.96 2.4 24.8
30 July 1999 0.39 1.54 2.7 24.7
Low (Rn  250 W m2) 17 July 1999 0.23 0.91 2.2 14.0
26 October 1999 0.33 0.27 1.4 20.6
 P.V. de Azevedo et al. / Agricultural Water Management 58 (2003) 241–254 253

These results suggest that the above canopy energy balance method offers higher precision
in the estimation of the mango orchard evapotranspiration when temperature gradients are a
minimum. Papakiriakou and McCaughey (1991) found BREB errors varying from 15
to 27.6% and from 9.7 to 14.8% for temperature differences of 0.01 and 0.005 8C,
respectively.

5. Conclusions

(A) For a 7-day basis, the error of estimation of the mango orchard evapotranspiration by
the soil water balance method—ETc (SWB) is smaller than that obtained by the
Bowen ratio-energy balance method—ETc (BREB), even though the method used
for computing them are quite different.
(B) In the soil and climate conditions of the middle reaches of San Francisco River region,
the mango orchard water requirement is not constant throughout the productive cycle.
However, it can be estimated by the crop coefficient (Kc) obtained as a function of the
days after flowering as: Kc ¼ 0:36 þ 0:009ðDAFÞ  4  105 ðDAFÞ2 .
(C) Due to the simplifications usually made, the Bowen ratio-energy balance method of
estimating evapotranspiration (ETc) seems not to respond to phenological changes
throughout the productive cycle of mango orchards. However, the field experiment must
be repeated in order to better evaluate the performance of the BREB method in the
estimation of ETc for each phonological stage of the mango orchard productive cycle.
(D) The soil water balance method of estimating mango orchard productive cycle
evapotranspiration should not be applied for time period less than a week in the soil
and climate conditions of the middle reaches of San Francisco River Valley.

Acknowledgements

The National Council of Scientific and Technological Research—CNPq/Brazil, sup-

ported the study reported herein. The authors would like to thanks to Brazilian Organiza-
tion for Agriculture and Animal Research—Embrapa, for allowing them to use its physical
facilities of laboratories, library and field experimental stations. The authors also would
like to thank the researchers L.H. Bassoi, J.M. Soares, and A.H. Castro Teixeira,
from Embrapa Semi-Árido and J.E. Sobrinho, from Escola Superior de Agricultura de
Mossoró—ESAM, Mossoró-RN, Brazil.

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