LAUSR

Abstract We propose a new simplified crop irrigation model and study the optimal control which consists in maximizing the biomass production at harvesting time, under a constraint on the total amount of water used. Under water scarcity, we show that a strategy with a singular arc can be better than a simple bang-bang control as commonly used. The gain is illustrated on numerical simulations. This result is a promising first step towards the application of control theory to the problem of optimal irrigation scheduling.