Effects of various soil structure and irrigation regimes on rio-red grapefruit yield and morpo-physiology

Abstract

The research was carried out in 2011 using Rio-Red grapefruit trees in Research Station of Cukurova University, Agricultural Faculty, Citrus experiment Station, Adana Latitude, 5°2 ’ N Longitude, 6°50’ E, altitude 27 m).In the study, it was aimed to determine the effects of the amount of irrigation water applied at different levels to the trees growing in soils of different soil texture on fruit development and yield, tree trunk development, tree canopy volume development, leaf area index(LAI) and photosynthesis rate. The research area soils contain three different groups in terms of resistivity values and the trees are grown in soils electrical conductivity (ECa) with T1: 86-109, T2: 23-37 and T3: 62-72 ECavalues.In the experiment, three different irrigation levels I100, I70 and I50 water was applied. The average amount of irrigation water applied to grapefruit trees ranged from 332,48 mm (I100) to 178,92 mm (I50). Actual plant water consumption was between 810.5 mm (I100) and 694.4 mm (I50) according to the water budget method. Yields related to irrigation on trees in the plot varied between 883 (I70) and 828 (I50) kg per tree on average. It has been determined as 1050 kg on average from the fully irrigated I100. Photosynthesis values were measured as 2.64 umol/m2/s for I50, 3.48 umol/m2/s for I70 and 4.77 umol/m2/s for I100. Consequently, the effects of irrigation treatmentson fruit yield are not statistically significant, water reduction can be recommended for the region in order to save water for the farmers in this study.