Water productivity of passion fruit under different forms of propagation and soil-based irrigation management criteria

Water shortage is a major environmental stress that destructively impacts maize production, particularly in arid regions. Therefore, improving irrigation management and increasing productivity per unit of water applied are needed, especially under the rising temperature and precipitation fluctuations induced by climate change. Laboratory and field trials were carried out in the present study, which were aimed at assessing the possibility of promoting maize germination, growth, grain yield and crop water productivity (CWP) using seed priming under different irrigation regimes. Two seed priming treatments, i.e., hydro-priming and hardening versus unprimed seeds, were applied under four irrigation regimes, i.e., 120, 100, 80 and 60% of estimated crop evapotranspiration (ETc). The obtained results indicated that increasing irrigation water from 100% up to 120% ETc did not significantly increase grain yield or contributing traits, while it decreased CWP. Deficit irrigation of 80 and 60% ETc gradually decreased grain yield and all attributed traits. Seed priming significantly ameliorated seedlings’ vigor as indicated by earlier germination, higher germination percentage, longer roots and shoots, and heavier fresh and dry weight than unprimed seeds with the superiority of hardening treatment. Additionally, under field conditions, seed priming significantly increased grain yield, yield contributing traits and CWP compared with unprimed treatment. Interestingly, the results reflect the role of seed priming, particularly hardening, in mitigating negative impacts of drought stress and enhancing maize growth, grain yield and attributed traits as well as CWP under deficit irrigation conditions. This was demonstrated by a significant increase in grain yield and CWP under moderate drought and severe drought conditions compared with unprimed treatment. These results highlight that efficient irrigation management and seed priming can increase maize yield and water productivity in arid environments.

Remote sensing techniques have been shown, in several studies, to be an extremely effective tool for assessing the performance of irrigated areas at various scales and diverse climatic regions across the world. Open access, ready-made, global ET products were utilized in this first-ever-countrywide irrigation performance assessment study. The study aimed at identifying ‘bright spots’, the highest performing sugarcane growers, and ‘hot spots’, or low performing sugarcane growers. Four remote sensing-derived irrigation performance indicators were applied to over 302 sugarcane growers; equity, adequacy, reliability and crop water productivity. The growers were segmented according to: (i) land holding size or grower scale (ii) management regime, (iii) location of the irrigation schemes and (iv) irrigation method. Five growing seasons, from June 2005 to October 2009, were investigated. The results show while the equity of water distribution is high across all management regimes and locations, adequacy and reliability of water needs improvement in several locations. Given the fact that, in general, water supply was not constrained during the study period, the observed issues with adequacy and reliability of irrigation in some of the schemes were mostly due to poor scheme and farm level water management practices. Sugarcane crop water productivity showed the highest variation among all the indicators, with Estate managed schemes having the highest CWP at 1.57 kg/m3 and the individual growers recording the lowest CWP at 1.14 kg/m3, nearly 30% less. Similarly center pivot systems showed to have the highest CWP at 1.63 kg/m3, which was 30% higher than the CWP in furrow systems. This study showcases the applicability of publicly available global remote sensing products for assessing performance of the irrigated crops at the local level in several aspects.

Irrigation sustainability is particularly important in the vicinity of Doñana National Park (Huelva, Spain), where Europe’s most important wetland area coexists with a profitable strawberry irrigation activity. In this paper, an innovation and technology transfer project was laid out. The project was promoted by the Institute of Agricultural and Fisheries Research and Training (IFAPA), belonging to the Regional Government of Andalusia. The main objective of the project was to contribute to the sustainability of the complex ecological, productive, and social system of this region. The project was focused on the rational use of water resources. Experimentation, demonstration, technology transfer, and training activities were carried out, involving public administrations, companies, and private farms. The project was carried out in collaboration with strawberry companies covering a total surface area of 1900 hectares. Irrigation application efficiency and irrigation water productivity increased by 66% and there was also a significant increase in water saving (44%), without resulting production losses. The success of the activity was based on the implication of farmers in experimentation assignments. During a five-year time span, irrigation trials took place on several farms. This fact allowed a progressive improvement of irrigation management by farmers based on confidence in the experimental work results.

Improvements in water productivity are of primary importance for maintaining agricultural productivity and sustainability. Water potential-based irrigation management has proven effective for this purpose with many different crops, including strawberries. However, problems related to spatial variability of soil properties and irrigation efficiency were reported when applying this management method to strawberries in soils with rock fragments. In this study, a field-scale experiment was performed to evaluate the impacts of three irrigation management scales and a pulsed water application method on strawberry yield and water productivity. An analytical solution to Richards’ equation was also used to establish critical soil water potentials for this crop and evaluate the effects of the variability in the soil properties. Results showed that spatial variability of soil properties at the experimental site was important but not enough to influence crop response to irrigation practices. The studied properties did not present any spatial structure that could allow establishing specific management zones. A four-fold reduction in the size of the irrigation management zones had no effect on yield and increased the water applications. Pulsed application led to significant yield (22%) and water productivity (36%) increases compared with the standard water application method used by the producer at the experimental site.

ABSTRACT Irrigation management is essential to promote appropriate plant growth and guarantee production and quality of the tomatoes for processing, increases the efficiency of nutrients use and contributes to ensure the sustainability of the production chain. This study was installed to evaluate productive performance of two processing tomato hybrids submitted to five water depths under drip irrigation system. Five levels of crop evapotranspiration (ETc) replacement (60%, 100%, 140%, 180% and 220%) and two tomato hybrids (BRS Sena and H 9992) were tested. The experimental design was a 5×2 factorial arranged in randomized complete block design with four replications. During the crop cycle, hybrids BRS Sena and H 9992 needed 692.20 and 418.43 mm of water, yielding 80 and 44.06 t ha-1, respectively. For both hybrids, the higher water productivity was observed when lower levels of irrigation were applied. Higher productivities and pulp yields of ‘BRS Sena’ and ‘H 9992’ were noticed when replacing 150-166% and 99-101% ETc, respectively. We observed that improving the performance of processing hybrid tomatoes is possible by adjusting irrigation levels for each hybrid according to growing conditions.

ABSTRACT Irrigation management is essential for tomato fruits yield and quality. Therefore, the aim of this study was to evaluate the yield of tomatoes for industrial processing, ‘BRS Sena’ hybrid, subjected to water depths and irrigation suspension periods before harvest, irrigated by subsurface drip irrigation, in Goiás, Brazil (17º 49’ 19.5” S and 49º 12’ 11.3” W), in 2015 and 2016. The experiments were conducted under a randomized complete block design, with four replications, in split plots. Five irrigation levels (50, 75, 100, 125 and 150% of crop evapotranspiration) were evaluated in the plots and five irrigation suspension periods (0, 7, 14, 21 and 28 days before harvest) were evaluated in the subplots. At 125 days after transplanting the seedlings, the yields of green, mature, rotten fruits and total yield, water productivity and percentages of green, mature and rotten fruits were evaluated. The highest total fruit yields (105.86 and 58.60 t ha-1) were obtained with water replacements ranging from 125.47 (615.09 mm) to 132.11 (564.00 mm) of crop evapotranspiration, in the first and second year of experiment, respectively. Growing plants under water deficit and excess increased the incidence of rotten fruits and decreased that of mature fruits. Pre-harvest irrigation suspension reduced crop yield and incidence of green fruits and increased the incidence of rotten fruits. The highest water productivity by the crop occurred under water deficit, management that may be interesting for regions with water restrictions.

ABSTRACT With this study, the objective was to determine the most economic management of irrigation water applied at different levels in the culture of passion fruit grown in conventional system and in polyethylene bags. The experiment was conducted in the city of Remanso, state of Bahia, Brazil. The experimental set-up was a randomized block design in a factorial design 2 (conventional system, and polyethylene bags of 100 L) x 5 (irrigation levels: 100%, 80%, 60%, 40% and 20% an irrigation management at field capacity) with four replications and four plants per plot. The treatments began 30 days after transplanting the seedlings to the field, and the analyzed variables were: plant height, stem diameter, leaf area and number of tertiary branches, of flower buds and fruits per plant. The data were interpreted by means of analyses of variance (test F) and means were compared by Tukey test at 5% probability of error. It was found that the yellow passion fruit got greater agronomic performance when grown in polyethylene bags, with irrigation management at 80 % field capacity.