Abstract
Practical and sustainable water management systems are needed in arid regions due to water shortages and climate change. Therefore, an experiment was initiated in winter (WS) and spring (SS), to investigate integrating deficit irrigation, associated with partial root drying (PRD) and soil mulching, under subsurface drip irrigation on squash yield, fruit quality, and irrigation water use efficiency (IWUE). Two mulching treatments, transparent plastic mulch (WM) and black plastic mulch (BM), were tested, and a treatment without mulch (NM) was used as a control. Three levels of irrigation were examined in a split-plot design with three replications: 100% of crop evapotranspiration (ETc), representing full irrigation (FI), 70% of ETc (PRD70), and 50% of ETc (PRD50). There was a higher squash yield and lower IWUE in SS than WS. The highest squash yields were recorded for PDR70 (82.53 Mg ha−1) and FI (80.62 Mg ha−1). The highest IWUE was obtained under PRD50. Plastic mulch significantly increased the squash yield (34%) and IWUE (46%) and enhanced stomatal conductance, photosynthesis, transpiration, leaf chlorophyll fluorescence, and leaf chlorophyll contents under PRD plants. These results indicate that in arid and semi-arid regions, soil mulch with deficit PRD could be used as a water-saving strategy without reducing yields.
Highlights
Increasing the consumption of water in the agricultural sector, and a lack of preventative measures to permanently conserve water and avoid water shortages, make it vital to manage water resources rather than develop new ways to supply water
As irrigation scheduling was based on ETc, more water was consumed in the SS than the winter season (WS) (Figure 4)
The effect of growing season deficit irrigation (DI) integrated with partial root drying (PRD), and soil mulching on the yield and irrigation water use efficiency (IWUE) of squash plants, was studied
Summary
Increasing the consumption of water in the agricultural sector, and a lack of preventative measures to permanently conserve water and avoid water shortages, make it vital to manage water resources rather than develop new ways to supply water. Drip irrigation is a promising irrigation strategy that reduces soil evaporation and deep drainage losses, while efficiently delivering water to plant roots [1]. Drip irrigation has shown its utility for water-saving and the efficient use of fertilizers, especially fruit and vegetable crops [2]. Various methods are currently used to increase the efficiency of delivering water to plants. One of these is subsurface drip irrigation (SSDI), which is primarily utilized to decrease water loss during water delivery to plants. Compared with other drip irrigation methods, SSDI has gained more acceptance in the irrigation sector in its ability to increase crop yield and reduce plant diseases and soil erosion [3,4,5]. Other methods that are used to efficiently managing water irrigation include deficit irrigation (DI) and soil mulching
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