Author(s): Gonçalves, Marta Filipa Dores Martins
Date: 2010
Persistent ID: http://hdl.handle.net/10400.5/6560
Origin: Repositório da UTL
Subject(s): Rocha pear; soil water balance; subsurface drip irrigation; surface drip irrigation; water productivity
Mestrado em Engenharia Agronómica - Instituto Superior de Agronomia
With the aim of comparing the physiologic response, the quality of the fruits and water productivity of a pear orchard irrigated by two different irrigation systems, a field trial was conducted on a 4 year old „Rocha‟ / Sydo pear orchard, irrigated by surface drip and subsurface drip irrigation, during the year 2009/2010. There are no differences in the flower bloom and fruit setting, sugar content and acidity of the fruits between the two irrigation systems, but the surface drip irrigation produced a larger percentage of fruits > 70 mm than subsurface drip irrigation. The subsurface system had lower soil water evaporation (124.8 mm and 148.4 mm for the subsurface system and surface drip, respectively) and increased water productivity (3.82 Kg.m3 for subsurface and 3.09 Kg.m3 for surface drip). For the same amount of water supplied, the subsurface irrigation had a 23.3% higher yield than surface drip, resulting also in a higher dry matter production by water used by the trees. The average cultural coefficient (Kc) of the orchard in the period 8 April to 31 August was 0.96.
