Abstract
Abstract The aim of this study was to quantify the water consumption of two atemoya cultivars in irrigated orchards using the thermal dissipation probe (TDP) method, relating transpiration with leaf area and evaporative demand of the atmosphere. The experiment was carried out in two atemoya orchards with young and adult plants of ‘Gefner’ and ‘African Pride’ cultivars at the experimental field of the University of the State of Bahia, in Juazeiro-BA. Plants sap flow was determined by TDP and vegetative growth, and meteorological variables were obtained. The sap flow of young atemoya plants reached maximum values of 10.2 and 8.4 L plant-1 day-1, in ‘Gefner’ and ‘African Pride’ cultivars, respectively. In adult plants, these values were 50.1 L plant-1 day-1 in ‘Gefner’ cultivar and 98.2 L plant-1 day-1 in ‘African Pride’ cultivar. The relationship between sap flow and leaf area showed linearity only for a given leaf area range, in both cultivars and orchards. Sap flow estimated from the product between leaf area and reference evapotranspiration can be used provided that the leaf area limits in which this relationship occurs, in each variety, are considered.
Highlights
Atemoya, a hybrid of the annonaceae family, has some of the good characteristics of cherimoya associated with others of sugar apple
This work aims to quantify the water consumption by atemoya crop by the thermal dissipation probe method, as well as its relationship with leaf area and evaporative demand of the atmosphere, in order to provide a basis for the planning and water management in the crop
The higher leaf area value of ‘Gefner’ plants in relation to ‘African Pride’ plants in this orchard is one of the factors that may have contributed to the higher flow rate found
Summary
A hybrid of the annonaceae family, has some of the good characteristics of cherimoya associated with others of sugar apple. Due to variations present in the parental species, there are atemoya cultivars with different characteristics, with the possibility of adaptation to different climatic conditions. The pruning of atemoya is among crop treatments suitable for its good development and production. The differentiated crop management, with the occurrence of plant defoliation for production, impairs the use of traditional methods to determine its water consumption and an efficient irrigation management. Mata-González et al, (2005) reported that the use of crop coefficients does not adequately estimate crop evapotranspiration in arid environments, as the method was developed assuming that plants have high leaf area index and low transpiration resistance
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