NEW MEXICO CLIMATE CENTER
	ARIZONA SCHEDULING MODEL INFORMATION

Using the AZMET Irrigation Scheduling Model for New Mexico locations

IMPORTANT!!

The Arizona Scheduling program is SITE SPECIFIC. Once you have run and configured your copy of the program for a particular location, it will ALWAYS use that location until you repeat the re-configuration process. Refer to the program description for more information.

• Attention Pecan Growers... NMSU now provides a CROP.DAT file for using AZSCHED for Pecans.

You may use a pre-configured copy of the program, or set up the model yourself to be used to evaluate and plan irrigation for a particular area as follows:

1. If you do not currently have the program:
   • Download the program Self-Extracting Zip Archive (unconfigured version).
   • INSTALL the program
     • Create a directory for the program
     • Change to the program directory
     • Run the Self-Extracting zip archive
     • Complete the setup as described below
2. If program was previously installed
   • Delete the following files from your program directory
     • azsched.cfg
     • stat.dat
     • field*.dat
     • weather.dat
   • Verify the program file set is otherwise complete.
   • Complete the setup as described below
3. Complete the program setup process.
   • Decide what location you will use
   • Convert and download weather data for the desired area
   • Download the appropriate WEATHDEF.DAT file for your area.
   • Run the AZSCHED program and
   • Follow the program prompts for
     • re-configuring and
     • selecting the station parameters

Important

When entering climate date into the Azmet model, down load a climate file from the beginning of the year to the current date and load this file into the program using the weather data function in the Azmet model. If you can not get a complete file from the NMSU weather home page but must start the file a month later because some data is missing, then enter the missing data into the Azmet model first, using the enter data from keyboard option in the Azmet model, and then load the rest of the climate data from the file you downloaded. Do not forget that the downloaded climate file is a self extracting file that must be run to get the file in the format needed by Azmet. If some data is missing when you try and down load the climate file later in the year then down load climate data on either side of the missing data and enter the missing data in Azmet using the keyboard option. After loading in the climate data initialize a field from the main menu giving the crop type, then press enter on the keyboard, field id, and planting date, use the arrow on the keyboard to change date, page up and page down will change the year. Irrigation efficiency should be set at 100 if all the water enters the soil. If the irrigation efficiency is set at 50% and a 4 inch irrigation is applied and the soil moisture reservoir will store it, then only 2 inches is stored and the rest ran off the surface. Management allowed deficiency depends on the crop. See the table by Sanders 1983 for values or use 50% when information is not available. The management allowed deficiency (MAD) is equal to

• MAD = (1 - aml)

where

• aml is the available soil moisture level recommended by Sanders (1983) at which irrigation should occur.

You will also need to obtain soil information needed by the program. If you want to run the model for past years, set your date on your computer for December 30 of that year and erase the WEATHDEF.DAT file in your directory then get the climate data for that year and run the Arizona model and it will create a new weathdef.dat file for the year that your computer is set for.

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