Abstract
Water has become the most precious of natural resources in many areas of Spain and, since agriculture is the major consumer of water, improvements in water use efficiency are increasingly sought. Regulated deficit irrigation (RDI) is an irrigation strategy based on applying only a fraction of the plant water requirements during certain periods of plant development. The paper reviews the available information on RDI strategies, in woody tree crops and vines based on studies by Spanish research groups. Both the promising results obtained and the drawbacks are covered.
Highlights
Irrigated agriculture (IA) is the major user of water in Spain, and it is estimated that 75% of the water resources allocated to the various users sections is utilized by IA (Libro Blanco del Agua en España, 2000)
Recent experiments in a commercial mature Navelina orchard (Gasque et al, 2009) have confirmed the feasibility of applying Regulated Deficit Irrigation (RDI) during the summer months to this orange cultivar, where water savings of 16 to 23% respect to fully irrigated control trees (516 mm year–1) did not affect yield or fruit quality during the 2007 and 2008 seasons. In conclusion these results indicate that the previous information on RDI obtained in Clementina can be thoroughly extrapolated to commercial orchards of this variety and to Navelina oranges, while Navel Lane Late seems to be more sensitive to water stress and further studies are still needed to define more precisely the timing and severity of water restrictions adequate for this late season cultivar
— RDI is based on the concept that deficit irrigation (DI) allows excessive vegetative growth to be controlled, while fruit growth is unaffected or even enhanced
Summary
Irrigated agriculture (IA) is the major user of water in Spain, and it is estimated that 75% of the water resources allocated to the various users sections is utilized by IA (Libro Blanco del Agua en España, 2000). PRD did not significantly affect physiological parameters, neither growth, yield or fruit and wine quality, when compared to the same amount of water applied by conventional drip irrigation.
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