Pegada hídrica e análise econômica da cultura de alface cultivada sob irrigação no município de Itabaiana-SE.

Abstract

The objective of this work was to determine the water footprint for lettuce crop during the winter, summer and autumn seasons, as well as to perform the economic analysis of the lettuce crop growth in the region of Itabaiana, SE. The research was carried out at the Vegetable Production Unit of Hortaliças Vida Verde, in partnership with the Federal University of Sergipe (UFS). The crop evapotranspiration (ETc) was obtained through the soil water balance and based on the CROPWATER model. The reference evapotranspiration (ETo) was obtained by the Penman-Monteith method, based on the data of air temperature (maximum and minimum), relative humidity, wind speed and solar radiation obtained from the automatic weather station located near the experimental area. The results indicated that the green component of water footprint decreases as the irrigation increases, while the blue component of water footprint (PH) increases as a function of the increase in the irrigation depth. The water footprint of the lettuce obtained based on the model underestimates the PH values obtained from the water balance. The blue water requirement is the one that contributes most to the total value of the water requirement of the crop in the summer-fall period.