Bean producers from the Brazilian Cerrado region have only one technology for the irrigation management: the measurement of the water tension in the soil through the use of tensiometers. Although this methodology has high potential, it has not been widely adopted by the producers. Thus, the utilization of models to estimate evapotranspiration estimate has shown to be applicable to the Cerrado region. So, this paper aims to evaluate the performance of the Chistiansen-Hargreaves model to estimate evapotranspiration of black bean crop in the dry season of the Brazilian Cerrado region. It also aims to provide producers an the adjusted model to estimate evapotranspiration which permit an efficient management for the agricultural irrigated system of the Cerrado region. The evapotranspiration of the black bean crop was measured with the use of a weighing lysimeter. The experiment was carried in the Brazilian Agricultural Research Corporation (Embrapa Cerrados), located in Planaltina, DF, Brazil. When calculated with crop coefficient, determined in the research and tested with adjusted energetic term (S0=0.5), the Chistiansen-Hargreaves model presented an excellent performance and may be used in irrigation management.
evapotranspiration; weighting lysimeter; irrigation handling; Phaseolus vulgaris
