Sensitivity of simulated surface wetness duration to meteorological variations in three different regions of Grand-Duchy of Luxembourg

Surface wetness duration (SWD) is an important factor influencing the occurrence of winter wheat diseases. For this reason, SWD is extremely important for the management of crop protection activities. In order to understand the SWD variability and its influence on winter wheat disease, the objective of this study was to (i) determine the sensitivity of our model on varying input plant parameters and (ii) to evaluate the influence of simulated SWD to meteorological variations in three different climatic regions of the Grand-Duchy of Luxembourg (EVERLANGE, OBERCORN and SCHIMPACH).
In this work, an agrometeorological model known as the Surface Wetness Energy Balance (SWEB) was applied for the simulation of SWD. The model was previously applied in another study for winter wheat cultivars and was adapted for use with agrometeorological data easily available from standard meteorological monitoring stations.
Based on weather data and simulated SWD data, sensitivity analyses were performed to compare the effects of relative humidity, air temperature, wind speed and net radiation on wetness duration over one growing season (March-July) at three test sites. The results indicated that the sensitivities were very similar at three sites and there was no spatial trend (i.e. difference between locations) in the sensitivities. However, the model is most sensitive to relative humidity and differences between 0.5 and 25 h (per month) SWD were found when increasing/decreasing relative humidity by 10%. The model was least sensitive to changes in air temperature, showing differences of only 0.5–2 h (per month) in SWD. Intermediate sensitivity is found for rainfall, net radiation and wind speed. Among the input plant parameters values, SWD was most sensitive to the maximum fraction of canopy allowed as wet surface area, leaf area index, maximum water storage per unit area and least sensitive to crop height. The sensitivity to parameter values was less important compared to the sensitivity to the meteorological variable relative humidity.