A Web-Based Irrigation Tool for Cotton

The IrrigationMonitor tool is an easy-to-use Web-based application available at the Crop Weather Program Toolbox to registered users of The Crop-Weather Program for South Texas (http://cwp.tamu.edu) to process information to support irrigation decisions. The IrrigationMonitor tool estimates how an irrigated crop uses the last applied irrigation water plus any additional rainfall amount, thus providing useful information for irrigation scheduling and/or the adjustment of irrigation systems. This tool applies only to cotton. The most important output generated by IrrigationMonitor is the amount of water (irrigation plus rainfall) left available to the crop since the last irrigation event expressed as a percentage. Irrigation managers can use this online tool to schedule the application of the next irrigation. This paper briefly describes the a) construction principles of this tool, b) the primary steps users take to use this online tool, and c) outputs of a case example.