Irrigation management practices in nectarine fruit quality at harvest and after cold storage

María R. Conesa, Wenceslao Conejero, Juan Vera, Vicente Agulló, Cristina García-Viguera and M. Carmen Ruiz-Sánchez

Agricultural Water Management, 2021, vol. 243, issue C

Abstract: This work aimed to ascertain the effects of diff ;erent irrigation management practices on yield, fruit quality (nutritional and sensorial) and storage performance of early-maturing nectarine fruits during three consecutive growing seasons (2016/2017–2018/2019) under Mediterranean conditions. Three irrigation treatments were studied: two based on maintaining non-limiting soil water conditions (100 % crop evapotranspiration, ETc) with one (T-Single) or two (T-Double) lines of emitters; and one based on volumetric soil water content (VSWC) threshold values (T-Auto). Despite the greater wetted surface in the T-Double treatment, a mild plant water deficit was observed during the post-harvest period, which did not significantly affect the yield and nectarine fruit quality. The T-Auto irrigation based on VSWC, which received 43 % less water than the T-Single treatment, caused a moderate water deficit, without yield penalty in any of the growing seasons studied and an increase in the water use efficiency of 34 % respect to the T-Single treatment. Furthermore, nectarine fruits from the T-Auto treatment had higher TSS levels (°Brix) at harvest. There were no significant differences in the physico-chemical quality among treatments after 10 days of cold storage (0 °C) plus 5 days of shelf-life (15 °C), showing fruits from the T-Single treatment the highest weight loss values. The use of precise agronomic criteria with soil water sensors is an avant-garde alternative for irrigation scheduling compared to the conventional ETc-based irrigation that improved water use efficiency and contributed to the sustainability of agriculture. The T-Double treatment has not provided any advantage in terms of production and quality compared to the T-Single treatment.

Keywords: Automated irrigation; Bioactive phytochemicals; Drip irrigation; Flavonoids; Sensory analysis; Weight loss (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0378377420316012
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:243:y:2021:i:c:s0378377420316012

DOI: 10.1016/j.agwat.2020.106519

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 ().