ABSTRACT In the past decade, special attention has been focussed on within-canopy and just above-canopy processes of heat, momentum and mass. Within canopies it appeared that various existing canopy models show contradicting results mainly due to lack of experimental results. That is why our research has been concentrated for a great deal on gathering within-canopy and just above-canopy data sets in order to obtain experimental evidence of high quality to verify canopy models. Attention has been given to estimate surface characteristics (roughness length and displacement height). It appeared that Goudriaan`s (1977) first-order closure model as well as Shaw and Pereira`s (1982) second-order closure model yield useful insight into the physical mechanism of these surface characteristics. The within-canopy flow is complex, highly turbulent and spatially very variable. Hardly any systematic experimental data, however, is available about this particular flow. That is why much effort has been given to measure the spatial variability of physical quantities within and just above a canopy. Results on this issue have been reported here briefly. In agriculture, in the past as well as nowadays, the phenomenon of dew formation, the consequent leaf wetness duration has been given much attention. We contributed to this issue by estimating experimentally dew profiles within a plant canopy. In our canopy it appeared that these profiles show similar shape for various dew events. This result suggests that it is likely to assume here that these similarity profiles are a consequent of the more or less constant foliage area distribution of a plant canopy during a growing season.
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