Sap flow measurements are important not only in the agrometeorology field, but also in studies of physiological nature to identify vascular diseases and researches concerned with quantification of water movement in soil-plant-atmosphere system. This study was carried out to evaluate the performance of the energy balance method, implemented by insertion of a miniresistor in the stem center of sugarcane plants, in order to determine the sap flow under distinct environment conditions, utilizing gravimetric measurements as comparative standard. The experiment was conducted in a non-environment controlled greenhouse, located at the Federal University of Viçosa, Viçosa-MG. Based on the mean bias error (MBE), it was verified that the energy balance method presented satisfactory results to determine sugarcane transpiration, both in cloudy and partly cloudy sky conditions, underestimating gravimetric values by only 3.0 and 6.5 gplant-1h-1, respectively. In percentage terms, these values correspond to 4 and 5% of the maximum sugarcane transpiration.
transpiration; Saccharum officinarum; water use efficiency; water requirement; irrigation
