Water stress in passion fruit cropping: an approach to its development

Abstract

In places with water restrictions, there is the occurrence of water stress, which compromises the entire cycle of passion fruit crop, causing damage to the vegetative and reproductive phase of the plant. Therefore, the objective of this work was to assess water stress in the passion fruit crop through an approach to its development. An experiment was carried out in May 2019 at São Paulo State University (Unesp), College of Agricultural and Technological Sciences located in the municipality of Dracena, State of São Paulo. The experimental design was completely randomized (DIC), in a 3x3 factorial arrangement, in which three passion fruit species were used: Passiflora gibertii; Passiflora foetida, and Passiflora edulis, interacting with three irrigation intervals, namely: 4, 8, and 12 days, with four replications, totaling 36 plots. It was found that the a 12-day interruption in the irrigation affects the growth of seedlings of different species of passion fruit, and the species P. gibertii has a growth rate higher than P. edulis and P. foetida. The species P. edulis showed lower contents of chlorophylls A, B, and total in relation to P. gibertii and P. foetida.