Abstract
ABSTRACT With this study, the objective was to determine the most economic management of irrigation water applied at different levels in the culture of passion fruit grown in conventional system and in polyethylene bags. The experiment was conducted in the city of Remanso, state of Bahia, Brazil. The experimental set-up was a randomized block design in a factorial design 2 (conventional system, and polyethylene bags of 100 L) x 5 (irrigation levels: 100%, 80%, 60%, 40% and 20% an irrigation management at field capacity) with four replications and four plants per plot. The treatments began 30 days after transplanting the seedlings to the field, and the analyzed variables were: plant height, stem diameter, leaf area and number of tertiary branches, of flower buds and fruits per plant. The data were interpreted by means of analyses of variance (test F) and means were compared by Tukey test at 5% probability of error. It was found that the yellow passion fruit got greater agronomic performance when grown in polyethylene bags, with irrigation management at 80 % field capacity.
Highlights
Passion Fruit is the popular name given to several species of the genus Passiflora, it presents great diversity of edaphoclimatic conditions and different production cycles, starting the production from the sixth month after planting, which provides producers with revenues distributed by most of the year
For the Brazilian semi-arid regions where the rains occur in a few periods, causing water shortage in some months, the use of irrigation is essential to ensure good production and fruit quality; the region is characterized by conditions of high evapotranspiration demand, the higher temperature values occur in the months from October to December, and the rainy season is limited to the months from January to April (EMBRAPA, 2012)
Data concerning the evaluations of the Yellow Passion Fruit height at 45 DAT under different irrigation levels for 15 days under the two proposed cultivation systems are showed at table 5
Summary
Passion Fruit is the popular name given to several species of the genus Passiflora, it presents great diversity of edaphoclimatic conditions and different production cycles, starting the production from the sixth month after planting, which provides producers with revenues distributed by most of the year. The passion fruit is relatively drought tolerant, in the event of prolonged water stress periods the plat growth is impaired and in rainfed conditions it develops satisfactorily if it is provided with a rainfall of 800 to 1,750 mm well distributed during the year (LAREDO, 2013). For the Brazilian semi-arid regions where the rains occur in a few periods (annual average of 400 mm), causing water shortage in some months, the use of irrigation is essential to ensure good production and fruit quality; the region is characterized by conditions of high evapotranspiration demand, the higher temperature values occur in the months from October to December, and the rainy season is limited to the months from January to April (EMBRAPA, 2012). The cultivation of passion fruit in polyethylene bags that can increase the use of water is suggested because the loss of water in the root system operational environment only happens by evapotranspiration, increasing the irrigation schedule time or decreasing the applied levels for irrigation without affecting production. Carvalho et al (2010) studying the development and productivity of yellow passion fruit under different irrigation levels in protected and natural environment, observed that business productivity did not suffer effect of water stress in the soil, with an average yield of 72.02 t ha, higher than the national average (13.395 kg ha-1); and, when Araújo et al (2012) handled the Yellow Passion Fruit in Pentecoste (CE), providing 50% of irrigation required in the evening period and 50% in the morning, they found that the total water level spent during the stages of vegetative development to production (cycle of 180 days) was close to the lower limit of the recommended range for the crop, resulting in greater productivity for the crop
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