Application of Evapotranspiration Partitioning Methods over an Almond Orchard

Estimating crop water use and stress as well as carbon uptake necessitates determining the fraction of evapotranspiration (ET) contributed from crop transpiration (T). Most traditional techniques for estimating T are a plant scale and requires scaling techniques that have significant uncertainty when extending to canopy and field scale. The use of eddy covariance (EC) measurements has been developed and shows promise at estimating patch and sub-field scale E and T partitioning. When combined with remote sensing methods, there is potential to scale T to field and landscape scale. This study explores the application of EC-based ET partitioning approach with remote sensing-based methods for estimating spatially-distributed almond tree T estimates. Tree-scale estimates of T were also performed using sap flow and proximal sensing techniques. The various techniques for estimating almond tree T will be compared and discussed.