Author(s)

Richard C. Beeson¹, Hang Thi Thu Duong², Roger Kjelgren²

¹Department of Horticultural Sciences, Institute of Agricultural Sciences, Mid-Florida Research and Education Center, University of Florida, Apopka, FL, USA.
²Department of Environmental Horticulture, Institute of Agricultural Sciences, Mid-Florida Research and Education Center, University of Florida, Apopka, FL, USA.

To meet minimum spring flows, water management districts in Florida sought to make both agriculture and urban landscapes water efficient, which includes tree farms. Quercus virginiana, commonly known as live oak trees, is endemic to Central Florida and among the most popular landscape trees for their gracefulness and spreading shade. To provide a basis for irrigation allocations both during production and in landscapes, daily actual evapotranspiration (ET_A) in liters for three live oak trees was measured with weighing lysimeters over five years, beginning with seedlings and continuing until trees averaged 7.2 meters in height. Empirical models were derived to calculate ET_A based on crown horizontal projected area (PCA) or trunk caliper (TCSA), adjusted daily by changes in evapotranspiration (ET_O). Average ET_A to produce these live oaks was 62,218 L cumulative over 5.5 years. Effectively transpiring leaf, tree water use volume divided by ET_O, was closely related to PCA over five years with the slope of this relationship being equivalent to a Plant Factor of 0.93. The product of ET_O and this Plant Factor can be used to estimate depth of live oak water demand in urban landscapes. Also, this Plant Factor can estimate water demand volume in nurseries and landscapes when combined with PCA, and similarly the slopes for TCSA can be used to estimate ET_A water volume from measured trunk diameter.

Quercus virginiana, Irrigation Scheduling, Irrigation Modelling, Container Production, Landscape Irrigation

Beeson, R. , Duong, H. and Kjelgren, R. (2018) Water Use of Juvenile Live Oak (Quercus virginiana) Trees over Five Years in a Humid Climate. Open Journal of Forestry, 8, 1-14. doi: 10.4236/ojf.2018.81001.