The partitioning of rainfall by a banana canopy in St. Lucia, Windward Islands
1997
Harris, D. (Windward Island Banana Growers Association (WINBAN), Castries (St. Lucia). Research and Development Division)
The partitioning of rainfall into interception, throughfall, and stemflow in a representative stand of banana was studied between 28 May 1994 and 10 September 1994 in St. Lucia, Windward Islands. Both throughfall and stemflow were highly correlated with rainfall amount, and comprised an average 80 and 10 percent of incident rainfall, respectively. Ten percent of rainfall was intercepted and presumably lost to the atmosphere as evaporation. Although the proportion of rain passing through the canopy was relatively constant, its spatial distribution changed with time as canopy architecture changed with time and age of the crop. The soil surface below the canopy was never wetted uniformly but measurements of soil moisture content at 30 cm depth, using a neutron probe, showed no consistent variation with spatial location. There was a steady increase in soil moisture at this depth throughout the period during which 723 mm of rain fell.
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