Agricultural practices that maximize productivity and water use are of vital importance to farming. Thus, three different soil managements were used in order to determine the evapotranspiration (ETc) and crop coefficients (kc) of beet in the experimental area of the Universidade Federal Rural do Rio de Janeiro, located in Seropédica, Rio de Janeiro State, Brazil. The used managements consisted of cameroon (Pennisetum purpureum), gliricídia (Gliricidia sepium) and bare soil. The irrigation depth was estimated based on the soil water balance in order to restore the amount of water until soil moisture corresponded to field capacity, monitored by a TDR technique. Reference evapotranspiration (ETo) was calculated using the Penamn-Monteith model. The accumulated ETc were 59.41, 55.31 and 119.62 mm, respectively, for cameroon, gliricídia and bare soil. The values of kc obtained for the initial, middle and end developmental stages were 0.39, 0.42 and 1.02, 0.79, 0.76 and 1.18 and 0.56, 0.61 and 0.84, respectively, for cameroon, gliricídia and bare soil. The use of soil cover with grass or legume minimized significantly the water demand by beet crop.
Beta vulgaris; Gliricidia sepium; Pennisetum purpureum; TDR; kc; organic mulching
