Stemflow in potato crops

Abstract

Interception of rain by the plant canopy and stemflow resulting in non-uniform distribution of soil water beneath the canopy has long been recognized in forest trees (Eschner, 1967). Rutter (1975) stated that stemflow may vary from quite small quantities to as much as 20% of the net rainfall and Geiger (1965) had earlier quoted data both from Ovington (1954), who found stemflow to be 0·1–0·3% of rainfall in seven forest canopies, and from Eidmann (1959) showing that a fir and a beech canopy gave 0·7 and 16·6% respectively of the average rainfall as stemflow. However, there have been few studies of the distribution of rain beneath the canopies of agricultural crops despite the implications which non-uniform distribution might have for studies of crop water and nutrients.