Water is a critical resource for optimal vegetative growth and marketable fruit quality and quantity. In Franconia, but also in other parts of Bavaria or dry regions of Germany, irrigation is often essential for specialty crops such as fruit and vine to ensure yields. But water is not only an important resource for agriculture, it is also essential for drinking water supplies. To avoid conflicts and improve the acceptance of agricultural irrigation in society, water use efficiency in agricultural irrigation must be increased. For this purpose, it is important to develop an improved irrigation management system for farms that takes into account the needs of the crops while saving water.

The irrigation app developed by the ALB already offers a very good approach for vegetables and agricultural crops. In the internet-based program, exact irrigation amounts and times can be determined specifically for each crop. The user can select his crop for a specific field and calculate the recommended individual water application. Rainfall, evaporation rates, soil characteristics and irrigation techniques are all taken into account. The tool uses existing weather stations from the LfL and DWD measurement network for its calculations. Farmers and market gardeners are already working successfully with the ALB model.

Currently, the application has no data for fruit (except strawberries) and viticulture. In particular, viticulture poses special challenges for irrigation due to its hillside location and orientation. In the orchards, the focus is on apple production. The aim of the project is to fill the ALB irrigation app with basic data for apple and vine crops, optimize it, and test its practicality in exact experiments conducted by the LWG.