Wheat crop water use in semi-arid and Mediterranean environments (Version V1) [Data set]

Authors: COOKE, DIANE - Zalf-Institute Of Soil Landscape Research; WHITE, JEFF - Former ARS Employee; CHANZY, ANDRE - Inrae; Evett, Steven; WEBBER, HEIDI - Zalf-Institute Of Soil Landscape Research

Submitted to: World Wide Web
Publication Type: Database / Dataset
Publication Acceptance Date: 4/28/2025
Publication Date: 4/30/2025
Citation: Cooke, D., White, J., Chanzy, A., Evett, S.R., Webber, H. 2025. Wheat crop water use in semi-arid and Mediterranean environments. Harvard Dataverse, V1. https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/HDKKAL.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/HDKKAL

Interpretive Summary: The scarcity of water resources in the U.S. Southern High Plains is of regional, national and even international concern due to the fact that the region acts as a breadbasket for the nation and world. The majority of agricultural production in this region depends on irrigation, largely dependent on pumping from the Ogallala or High Plains Aquifer, which is yielding less water every year. Scientists at the USDA ARS Conservation and Production Research Laboratory at Bushland, Texas, collected data that can be used to calculate crop water use and crop water productivity under irrigated and dryland conditions in the region’s climate. Winter wheat crops were grown in 1989 through 1993 on four large, precision weighing lysimeters used to measure crop water use, each in the center of an 11-acre square field also planted to these crops. They produced data sets consisting of periodic growth, water use, yield, soil water content, and weather data for each year. These data were used in cooperation with international scientists in an intercomparison and improvement study of winter wheat models focused on semi-arid growing environments. The scientific team prepared these unique data sets for sharing with other scientists and the general public on the Harvard Dataverse internet site. These data sets have already been used to calculate crop water productivity and crop coefficients to guide irrigation scheduling, and to intercompare and improve crop models used to guide irrigation scheduling and water planning locally and regionally. Public accessibility via the Harvard Dataverse will increase their use by other researchers developing more capable water management tools and crop water use and yield computer models

Technical Abstract: Two sets of wheat field experimental data and associated management practices from Bushland, Texas, USA and Avignon, France are provided. These datasets were selected based on completeness of the data and availability of data providers to clarify interpretation of data and obtain additional information, especially as related to crop management and soil characteristics. The field experiments differ in their climate, soil and individual study designs. The first is a lysimeter experiment from Bushland, Texas, USA. The site has a semi-arid climate and Pullman Clay Loam soil. Data are available from three years, with two treatment fields planted each year, characterized by either full or partial irrigation (irrigated for crop establishment). Different winter bread wheat (Triticum aestivum) cultivars were planted each year, but remained the same between treatments within the same year. The second dataset is from Avignon, France, a site with a Mediterranean climate. The soil is a calcaric fluvisol. Crops were largely rainfed, though some years received small supplemental irrigation to ensure crop establishment. The field was sown with a succession of winter and summer crops over twelve years, including six durum wheat (T. turgidum ssp. durum) crops. Cultivar mostly varied between years, with four cultivars used over the course of the experiment. We selected data from 4 of these years, having excluded two years data due to poor emergence and incompatibility of the phenology data collected with that required for model calibration.