Credit hours
In-class work per week |
Practice per week |
Credits |
Duration |
Total |
4 |
2 |
10 |
15 weeks |
150 hours |
Instructor
Fábio Ricardo Marin
Objective
The course offers for a quantitative approach on the crop physiology and on the leaf and canopy relationships with the atmosphere. The principles of the canopy architecture are studied as a basis for understanding the solar radiation absorption and crop growth rate. Fluid mechanics concepts are applied to atmospheric flows, seeking to understand the processes of turbulent transport and their implication in the mass and energy balance in agricultural systems. Emphasis is given to the quantification of the physiological processes involved in water consumption and crop water requirements, as well as the causes and effects of the canopy-atmosphere coupling. It presents the bases for the scientific thinking in the field of crop modeling as an instrument for interpreting the plant-atmosphere related phenomena. Techniques of scientific writing are implicitly discussed and required from students to prepare the academic assignment.
Content
1) Atmospheric phenomena scales; scope, importance and applications in the micrometeorological scale; fundamental concepts on agrometeorology; 2) Interaction of radiant energy with vegetative canopies on the scale and growth rate and crop water consumption; 3) Radiation and energy balance of natural and implanted vegetated surfaces; 4) Atmospheric flow on vegetated surfaces; interaction of the wind with the vegetation and its profiles in and above the vegetative canopies; effects of surface roughness changes; aerodynamic resistance to vertical transport; 5) Vertical flow of an atmospheric property; thermodynamic and psychrometric aspects associated with water vapor flows; 6) Determination of mass flow (water vapor) of vegetative canopies and modeling of mass and energy fluxes at the cup-atmosphere interface; effect of degree of coupling between atmosphere and vegetation; 7) Ecophysiological implications of the studied processes.
Bibliography
Allen R.G., Pereira L.S., Raes D., Smith M. Crop evapotranspiration. Guidelines for computing crop water requirements. FAO Irrigation and Drainage Paper 56, 1998. 300p.
Campbell G.S., Norman J.M. Introduction to environmental biophysics. Springer Verlag, 1998. 286p.
Garratt J.R. The Atmospheric boundary Layer. Cambridge University Press, 1990. 316p.
Hatfield, J.L.; Baker, J.M., 2005. Micrometeorology in agricultural systems, Agronomy Monograph No.47, 2005 584 pp.
Monteit J.L., Unsworth M.H. Principles of environmental physics, Edward Arnold, 1990. 291p.
Monteith J.L. Vegetation and Atmosphere, vol. I., Academic Press, 1975. 278 p.
Marin, F.R. Microclimatologia Agrícola. 2022. Fealq.
Pal Arya, S., 2001. Introduction to micrometeorology, San Diego: Academic Press.
Rosenberg N.J., Blad B.L.;Verma S.B. Microclimate - The Biological Environment. 2ed. Wiley & Sons, 1983. 495p.
Thornley, John H.M. and Ian R. Johnson. Plant and Crop Modeling: A Mathematical Approach to Plant and Crop Physiology. Oxford University Press. New York. Blackburn Press. 2000.
Jones, H.G. Plants and microclimate: a quantitive approach to environmental plant physiology. Cambridge. 2015