Abstract
Strawberry (Fragaria×ananassa Duch.) production requires the input of large amounts of water provided by irrigation during the entire production cycle. However, water availability is shrinking in many important strawberry cropping areas, such as Huelva (in Europe), compromising the environmental sustainability and economic viability of strawberry production. Besides technical approaches, water-saving strategies are necessary for improving strawberry water productivity such as the use of low water-consumptive cultivars with high productivity or cultivars allowing deficit irrigation (DI) strategies. A two-year field experiment was conducted to compare the physiological and agronomical response of six commercial strawberry cultivars (‘Sabrina’, ‘Fortuna’, ‘Splendor’, ‘Primoris’, ‘Rabida’ and ‘Rociera’) to six different water treatments ranging from 65% to 140% of estimated ‘Sabrina’ evapotranspiration (ETcSab; ~224–510 mm year−1). Cultivars differed substantially in yield and water consumption linked to their biomass partitioning into reproductive/ vegetative organs, determining different yield efficiency (YE). Their water needs (IN) conditioned their response to different water supplies, involving significant yield losses in DI treatments (<20% IN) but not decreasing fruit quality. The highly-consumptive and productive ‘Rabida’ and ‘Rociera’, reduced yields by DI (<40%) but were still profitable; the low-water-consumptive but still productive ‘Fortuna’, ‘Splendor’ and ‘Primoris’ represent significant water-savings (<20%) in strawberry cultivation.
Highlights
IFAPA Centro de Málaga, Junta de Andalucía, Cortijo de la Cruz s/n, 29140 Málaga, Spain; IFAPA Centro Las Torres, Junta de Andalucía, Ctra, Sevilla Cazalla Km. 12.2, 41200 Sevilla, Spain; IFAPA Centro de Huelva, Junta de Andalucía, Julio Caro Baroja s/n, 21002 Huelva, Spain; IFAPA Centro de Alameda del Obispo, Junta de Andalucía, Avenida Menéndez Pidal, S/N, Abstract: Strawberry (Fragaria×ananassa Duch.) production requires the input of large amounts of water provided by irrigation during the entire production cycle
In these cropping systems, improving irrigation water use efficiency is important and water-savings strategies are necessary for reducing water demand and enhancing strawberry irrigation water productivity (WPi fruit yield per water supplied by irrigation) [17] and crop water productivity [18]
Previous works have contributed to improving irrigation efficiency in strawberry cultivation by determining crop coefficients in several cultivated strawberries [12,16] or by using different irrigation practices [40,41,42], in the present work we report the use of water-saving strategies such as low water consumptive and productive strawberry cultivars, and sustained deficit irrigation as an alternative for optimizing irrigation water use but keeping profitability under low water availability scenarios
Summary
IFAPA Centro de Málaga, Junta de Andalucía, Cortijo de la Cruz s/n, 29140 Málaga, Spain; IFAPA Centro Las Torres, Junta de Andalucía, Ctra, Sevilla Cazalla Km. 12.2, 41200 Sevilla, Spain; IFAPA Centro de Huelva, Junta de Andalucía, Julio Caro Baroja s/n, 21002 Huelva, Spain; IFAPA Centro de Alameda del Obispo, Junta de Andalucía, Avenida Menéndez Pidal, S/N, Abstract: Strawberry (Fragaria×ananassa Duch.) production requires the input of large amounts of water provided by irrigation during the entire production cycle. Water requirements reported in previous studies for ‘Sabrina’ strawberry during the entire growing season were ~560 mm, assuming 85% of irrigation efficiency [12,16]; more than ~30% of this total water supply is for soil preparation and plantation while crop water requirements during the growing period are between 350–400 mm [12,16] In these cropping systems, improving irrigation water use efficiency (the proportion of irrigation supply that is consumed by the crop) is important and water-savings strategies are necessary for reducing water demand and enhancing strawberry irrigation water productivity (WPi fruit yield per water supplied by irrigation) [17] and crop water productivity (fruit yield per crop evapotranspiration WPc ) [18]
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