This study was conducted at the Bebedouro Experimental Station in Petrolina-PE, Brazil, to evaluate the errors associated to the application of the Bowen ratio-energy balance in a 3-years old vineyard (Vitis vinifera, L), grown in a trellis system, irrigated by dripping. The field measurements were taken during fruiting cycle (July to November, 2001), which was divided into eigth phenological stages. A micrometeorological tower was mounted in a grape-plants row in which sensors of net radiation, global solar radiation and wind speed were installed at about 1.0 m above the canopy. Also in the tower, two psicometers were installed at two levels (0.5 and 1.8 m) above the vineyard canopy. Two soil heat flux plates were buried at 0.02 m beneath the soil surface. All these sensors were connected to a Data logger 21 X of Campbell Scientific Inc., programmed for collecting data once every 5 seconds and storage averages for every 15 minutes. A comparative analysis were made among four Bowen ratio accepting/rejecting rules, according to the methodology proposed by Spano et al. (2000): betar1 - values of beta calculated by Bowen (1926) equation; betar2 - values of beta as proposed by Verma et al. (1978) equation; betar3 - exclusion of the beta values obtained as recommended by Unland et al. (1996) and betar4 - exclusion of the beta values calculated as proposed by Bowen (1926), out of the interval (-0.7 < beta < 0.7). Constacted that the Unland et al. (1996) and Soares (2003) accepting/rejection rules were better than that of Verma et al. (1978) for attenuating the advective effects on the calculations of the Bowen ratio. The comparison of betar1 with betar2 rules showed that the statistical errors reaching maximum values of 0.015. When comparing betar1 with betar3 e betar4, the beta errors reaching maximum values of 5.80 and 3.15, respectively.
latent and sensible heat fluxes; evapotranspiration; semi-arid region
