Development and assessment of a smartphone application for irrigation scheduling in cotton

The goal of this work was to develop an easy-to-use and engaging irrigation scheduling tool for cotton which operates on a smartphone platform. The model which drives the Cotton SmartIrrigation App (Cotton App) is an interactive ET-based soil water balance model. The Cotton App uses meteorological data from weather station networks, soil parameters, crop phenology, crop coefficients, and irrigation applications to estimate root zone soil water deficits (RZSWD) in terms of percent as well as of inches of water. The Cotton App sends notifications to the user when the RZSWD exceeds 40%, when phenological changes occur, and when rain is recorded at the nearest weather station. It operates on both iOS and Android operating systems and was released during March 2014. The soil water balance model was calibrated and validated during 2012 and 2013 using data from replicated plot experiments and commercial fields. The Cotton App was evaluated in field trials for three years and performed well when compared to other irrigation scheduling tools. Its geographical footprint is currently limited to the states of Georgia and Florida, United States, because it is enabled to use meteorological data only from weather station networks in these states. A new version is currently under development which will use national gridded meteorological data sets and allow the Cotton App to be used in most cotton growing areas of the United States.