Daily reference evapotranspiration (ET0) is the most crucial link in estimating crop water demand. In this study, Levenberg-Marquardt (L-M), Genetic Algorithm-Back Propagation (GA-BP) and Partial Least Squares Regression (PLSR) models were introduced to calculate the ET0 values, Based on the Pearson Correlation analysis method, five meteorological factors were obtained, which were combined into six different input scenarios. Compared with the values that calculated by the the Penman Monteith (PM) formula. Root Mean Square Error (RMSE), Mean Absolute Error (MAE), Nash-Sutcliffe Efficiency (NSE), and Scatter Index (SI) were used to evaluate the simulation performance of the models. The results showed that the simulation effect of the L-M model is better than that of the GA-BP model and PLSR model in all scenarios. PLSR model has the worst performance. The SI index of L-M6 was 46.69% lower than that of GA-BP6 and 65.78% lower than that of PLSR6. When the input factors are 3, the simulation effect of the input wind speed, the maximum temperature and the minimum temperature is the best. L-M model and GA-BP model can predict the ET0 in the region with a lack of meteorological data. This study provides an important reference for high-precision prediction of ET0 under different input combinations of meteorological factors.