Sustainable management of limited water resources in a young orange orchard

S. Consoli, F. Stagno, G. Roccuzzo, G.L. Cirelli and F. Intrigliolo

Agricultural Water Management, 2014, vol. 132, issue C, 60-68

Abstract: In the study, deficit irrigation (DI) strategies were imposed on a young orange orchard in Sicily (Southern Italy) with the aim to monitor and analyze crop physiological features, first yield and fruit quality data for possible negative effects. The orchard includes trees irrigated with drip and sub-drip irrigation systems. Irrigation strategies, based on DI concepts, including regulated deficit irrigation (RDI) and partial root-zone drying (PRD), were adopted during the irrigation seasons 2011 and 2012, each supplying different percentages of the crop evapotranspiration (ETc). Several physiological indices indicative of plant water status were analyzed during the trial, including, stem water potential, stomatal conductance, canopy temperature, trunk diameter variations, leaf area index (LAI). The imposed DI strategies allowed maximum water saving of 41% (PRD treatment), without conditioning the first yield data. Fruit composition resulted positively affected by water restrictions. The impact of the imposed deficit on trees depends mainly on its degree of severity (i.e. lowering of stem water potential above the threshold of −1.3MPa for citrus orchards). A certain growth reduction was observed in DI treatments causing WUE (plant water use efficiency) increase, in terms of reducing competition between vegetative and reproductive growth. Subsurface drip irrigation system, designed for supplying 75% of ETc allowed plant water status, yield and quality data quite comparable with those obtained in the control treatment, supplying 100% of ETc by surface drip irrigation systems. Overall, the obtained results show that the studied DI strategies were successfully applied in a young orange orchard allowing water saving without significant detrimental effect on trees.

Keywords: Irrigation water requirement; Plant water status; Physiological indices; Water saving (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2014
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (13)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S037837741300276X
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:agiwat:v:132:y:2014:i:c:p:60-68

DOI: 10.1016/j.agwat.2013.10.006

Access Statistics for this article

Agricultural Water Management is currently edited by B.E. Clothier, W. Dierickx, J. Oster and D. Wichelns

More articles in Agricultural Water Management from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().