Potato is one of the most important legumes and constitutes a dominant portion of the global diet. Its physiological activities as well as the quantity and quality of its tubers are influenced by water stress. Herein, we evaluate the effect of several irrigation regimes on the recovery time of potato physiological activities and yield. The treatments were composed of −40 (dry) and −60 kPa (very dry) of soil matric potential (SMP) across three stress periods of 1 (1D), 3 (3D), and 7 (7D) days. A control treatment was included that considered −20 kPa of SMP during the experiment. The results showed a complete recovery of potato plants treated by applying a SMP of −40 kPa during 1 day when compared with the plant control. Although a decrease in physiological activities was observed, the potato plant was shown to consume 10% less water in this scenario. Other treatments showed yield losses, especially the treatments under 7 days, in which plants did not fully recover. Based on the results of yield loss and water stress, a water deficit index (WDI) model was proposed. WDI values >0.78 produced significant yield losses compared to the control. Therefore, the response time is a valuable measure for future research on the impacts of water stress on plants. Also, WDI is a promising index that can assist in forecasting the impact of water stress on the level of potato productivity.

Agricultural soil compaction adversely affects crop water use and yield performance and should be avoided or remediated through appropriate soil management strategies. The investigation of the impact of different levels of soil compaction on its hydrodynamic properties remains a crucial step in improving water use and crop yields. We examined five compaction levels of silty sand soil sampled from a potato field in the agricultural regions of northern Quebec (Canada). Soil hydraulic characteristics (saturated and unsaturated hydraulic conductivity, soil water retention capacity) were measured using the constant head method, the HYPROP device, and a WP4C dew point potentiometer. The sixteen hydraulic models integrated into the HYPROP software were fitted to the soil water retention curve (SWRC) data for the studied compaction levels. Statistical parameters such as the mean bias error, mean absolute error, correlation coefficient, and root mean square error were used to measure the performance of the models. The results show that saturated and unsaturated conductivity decreases with increasing soil compaction. The lowest saturated hydraulic conductivity (Ks) value is observed for the highest level of soil compaction, reflecting a solid medium with less pore space and connectivity. Among the hydraulic models, the Peters-Durner-Iden (PDI) variant of van Genuchten's unconstrained bimodal model (VGm-b-PDI) outperformed all other models for SWRC simulation of different soil compaction levels and was, accordingly, selected as the optimal model. This model was implemented in HYDRUS-1D to estimate the amount of irrigation for different compaction levels. We simulated irrigation scenarios with the dual-porosity model. The results indicated that soil compaction can strongly influence soil hydraulic properties and water differently. However, the amount of irrigation for the potato crop was optimal at a moderate level of soil compaction. Overall, combined HYPROP and HYDRUS 1D can provide helpful information on the soil hydraulics properties dynamics and a rigorous simulation for irrigation planning and management in potato fields.

In this paper we first compare three different methods of spatial interpolation, i.e., inverse distance weighting (IDW), thin plate splines (TPS), and kriging on weekly water table depth (WTD) measurements from 80 observation wells in two cranberry farms (Farm A and Farm B) located in Québec, Canada. We use the leave-one-out cross-validation approach to assess the performance of the methods. Second, we evaluate the influence of the density of measurement points over the interpolation error for the cited methods. Third, we assess the performance of drainage systems and their impacts on crop productivity as a result of cumulative rainfall. Results along with practical considerations show that TPS is the best interpolator for WTD and this superiority is maintained and further demonstrated through a sensitivity analysis of the methods to spatial sampling density, i.e., partitioning the data into subsets of 25, 50, and 75% of the dataset. However, the random approach for selecting these subsets shows an unexpected result; that is, the interpolation methods exhibit a higher performance in terms of the Pearson correlation (r) for the 25% data subset at Farm B. Meanwhile, the cumulative precipitation over a three-day period, the maximum time required to return the soil matric potential to the optimal value after a major rainfall event, had a steady influence on WTD and thus crop productivity in the studied farms. This influence is more apparent for Farm A, but a rather random effect is noted for Farm B. This study presents a water-management-based strategy that mitigates the supplementary cost and effort for sensor deployment in water table monitoring for cranberry production. It is therefore of practical interest to cranberry growers and decision-makers who aim to maximize yields through water-management-oriented strategies.

Soil organic carbon (SOC) has a significant effect on the carbon cycle, playing a vital role in environmental services and crop production. Increasing SOC stock is identified as an effective way to improve carbon dioxide sequestration, soil health, and plant productivity. Knowing soil water is one of the primary SOC decomposition driver, periods in the crops growth stages with increased water movement might influence the SOC dynamics. Here, we evaluate the temporal effect of four precision irrigation thresholds ( $$-15$$- 15 , $$-30$$- 30 , $$-45$$- 45 , and $$-60$$- 60 kPa) in potato crop on SOC dynamics using the Partial Least Square algorithm and the Tea Bag Index in a sandy soil under potato production. The difference of SOC decomposition rate between the precision irrigation thresholds is developed in the second quarter of the growing season, between 38 and 53 days after planting. This critical period occurred in a stage of strong vegetative growth and rapid irrigation cycles. The precision irrigation threshold affected the decomposition rate of SOC. A faster decomposition of labile organic carbon was promoted by water excess ( $$-15$$- 15 kPa). The dryer ( $$-30$$- 30 , $$-45$$- 45 , and $$-60$$- 60 kPa) precision irrigation thresholds did not show any differences. The advancement of this knowledge may promote soil health conservation and carbon sequestration in agricultural soil.