Irrigation Scheduling for Pear Orchards in Marmara Region of Turkey

Abstract

Fruit growing is more important in terms of agricultural cultivation. Pear is a valuable kind of fruit species that supported to economy in Turkey. Pear trees need to irrigation in the period of growing/cultivation. Irrigation is more important factor for pear. Generally, application of irrigation recommend from the beginning of May until the end of September. Irrigation methods change according to orchard’s soil characteristic and climatic conditions depend on research area. For this reason, a project for a pear orchard of 1 da to be drip irrigated was prepared and put into operation. Monitoring and evaluation efforts were made in the field and were compared with those for the non-irrigated areas. In this study, irrigation methods and water resources were investigated in orchard of pear in the vicinity of Hisareyn/Kocaeli in Turkey. So, double ring infiltrometer test has been done for the determination of soil infiltration rate and the infiltration value of the soil has been calculated as 8 mm h -1 . After the some soil characteristics were determined, drip irrigation system set up in the area for orchard irrigation. With irrigation time scheduling, it has been proposed that 10-12 hours of irrigation once a week or 6-7 hours of irrigation every 4 days can be applied. Keywords: Drip irrigation, infiltration, irrigation project, productivity, water management