Simulation of Particle Dispersion in a Trellised Agricultural Canopy using the QUIC Dispersion Model

The QUIC (quick urban and industrial complex) Dispersion Modeling System is a high-resolution numerical tool that was originally developed to rapidly compute the transport of contaminants in urban areas. QUIC includes an empirically based mass consistent building-resolving wind model for determining time-averaged three-dimensional velocity fields in cities as well as an urbanized Lagrangian dispersion model with turbulence parameterizations for computing particle concentrations and deposition. More recently, the capacity to compute dispersion through vegetative canopies and windbreaks has been added to the system. In this work, we evaluate QUIC's ability compute the dispersion of particles in trellised agricultural canopies such as vineyards. The simulations are based on field experiments conducted by our team in a commercial vineyard near Monmouth, Oregon during the fall of 2011 and 2013. During these experiments, microspheres with a similar size and mass to multiple natural particles of interest in vineyards including the spores of Erysiphe necator and of Botrytis cineria, were released for different wind directions with respect to the structured canopy. Comparisons between QUIC and the experimental results for mean winds, turbulence and concentrations will be presented. A discussion of QUIC's performance with respect to different meteorological conditions will presented along with recommendation for potential model improvements.