Water requirement and response of ‘tahiti’ acid lime trees to different irrigation levels

Author(s)

José Alves Júnior

• Document type: Doctoral Thesis
• Press: Piracicaba.
• Institution: Universidade de São Paulo (USP). Escola Superior de Agricultura Luiz de Queiroz (ESALA/BC)
• Defense date: 2006-08-08

Examining board members

Marcos Vinicius Folegatti; Tarlei Arriel Botrel; Luís Fernando de Souza Magno Campeche; Jose Antonio Frizzone; Fernando Braz Tangerino Hernandez

• Advisor: Marcos Vinicius Folegatti

Abstract

The State of São Paulo is one of the most important producers of citrus of the world. Recent studies showed that during the last 5 years, there was a significant increase in the area with citrus irrigation. However, the shortage of water and the unavailability of required information for efficient irrigation scheduling are the main problems that producers face. Therefore, the objective of this work was an estimate water requirement of young ‘Tahiti’ lime orchards considering the independent contributions from soil evaporation and crop transpiration by splitting the crop coefficient (Kc=ETc/ETo) into two separate coefficients; Ke, a soil evaporation coefficient and Kcb, a crop transpiration coefficient. Evaluate the effect of different irrigation levels (0 to 100% of crop evapotranspiration by weighing lysimeter) on ‘Tahiti’ acid lime young tree canopy and root growth, productivity and quality of fruit, under drip irrigation in the field. The experiment was conducted during a 3-yr period (August 2002 - May 2005) in a 1.0 ha plot planted with ‘Tahiti’ acid lime trees, grafted on ‘Swingle’ citrumelo rootstock. The trees were 1-yr old at planting, spaced 7 x 4 m. The orchard was located in Piracicaba, São Paulo State, Brazil. Each treatment was assigned to different irrigation level, based on ETc as determined by a weighing lysimeter. The trunk diameter and height tree were evaluated monthly. The roots were evaluated when the trees were 30 and 48 months old. Adopted during the first root sampling were 4 horizontal distances from the tree trunk (0.3, 0.6, 0.9 and 1.2 m) and 2 depths (0.0-0.3 and 0.3- 0.6 m). Adopted during the second sampling were 5 horizontal distances from trunk (0.3, 0.6, 0.9, 1.2 and 1.5 m), and 3 depths (0.0-0.3, 0.3-0.6 and 0.6-0.9 m). The yield was evaluated by measuring weight and number of fruits per tree in 2004 and 2005. The quality of the yield was evaluated by measuring fruit diameter, rind thickness, % of juice, total soluble solids, pH and total acidity. During the study period, Kc varied between 0.6 to 1.22, and Kcb varied between 0.4 to 1.0. The independent influence of soil evaporation and transpiration is important to better understand the water consumption of young lime tree during the growth, compared to mature lime tree. The biggest ETc and Kc were observed on summer. The results showed that young trees irrigated with 100% ETc resulted in greater growth. The results also showed that did not happen differences in root distribution in the depths, most of them at 0-0.3m. However, the horizontal distribution at lower levels (25 and 50%) of that in the biggest levels (75 and 100%) that concentrated at 0.6 m, indicating that water stress induced the root growth horizontally. The results, at the second analysis, showed that did not happen differences in root distribution soil profile, and effective depth and horizontal distance of root located to 0.6 m of depth and 0.6 of horizontally distant of tree. Finally, the irrigation induced precocity of production, increase of productivity and the fruits number already with irrigation of 25% of ETc. The quality of fruit, did not present difference among the treatments. (AU)