Innovative Soil Management and Micro-Climate Modulation for Saving Water in Peach Orchards

Pasquale Campi,Liliana Gaeta,Pasquale Losciale,Marcello Mastrorilli

doi:10.3389/fpls.2020.01052

Abstract

Microclimatic and soil management studies emphasize that roofing above the canopy or soil mulching contributes to reduce water losses from horticultural cropping systems and, at the same time, to increase water use efficiency. The aim of this 2-year on-farm study, carried out on a late ripening peach (cv. California) orchard, was to investigate the combined effect of water supply (full or deficit irrigation, DI), incoming light (hail or shading net), and soil management (tilling or mulching) on: microclimate; fruit growth; yield; irrigation water use productivity (WPI); and soil water stress coefficient (Ks). Shading hail net reduced air temperature (−1°C), wind speed (−57%), solar radiation (−32%), while increased relative air humidity (+9.5%). Compared to the control treatment (hail net coverage, soil tillage, and full irrigation), the innovative management (DI + shading hail net + mulching) reduced seasonal volumes of irrigation water (−25%) and increased both final yield (+36%) and WPI (+53%). Saving water resources without losing yield is an achievable goal by peach orchards growing under the Mediterranean climate if the DI agro-technique is adopted conjointly with shading hail net and soil mulching.

Highlights

Deficit irrigation (DI) is a sustainable way to use the water resources in the Mediterranean cropping systems
The reduction in solar radiation was in line with the net manufacturer specifications: 9% for the hail net and 32% for the shading hail net (Table 3)
Shading hail net used in this study reduced direct incident solar radiation by 32% and the microclimatic conditions in the peach orchard changed (Table 3)

Summary

Introduction

Deficit irrigation (DI) is a sustainable way to use the water resources in the Mediterranean cropping systems. The economic and agronomic benefits of DI are coupled with the environmental ones (Villalobos and Fereres, 2016). Climate scenarios in the Mediterranean region, both in the short and medium terms, stress the importance of DI, as well as of tuning the set of water-saving agronomic techniques (Allen et al, 2018). Screen covers placed over the orchard canopies modify microclimate (Tanny et al, 2009; Bastias et al, 2011; Losciale et al, 2011; Tanny et al, 2014) since they affect radiation, wind, temperature, and humidity. The canopy covering regulates the atmosphere water demand

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