Yield and Water Use of Eggplants (Solanum melongena L.) Under Different Irrigation Regimes and Fertilizers

Abstract

This study was conducted ın Bandırma (Balıkesir, Turkey) during the growing season of the plant in 2017 and 2018 to determine the effect of four levels of irrigation water and three kinds of fertilizer on yield and water use of field-grown eggplant (solanum melongena). Treatments included four irrigation regimes, which were 100% (I100, control), 80% (I80), 60% (I60), and 40% (I40) of evaporation from Class A Pan and three different fertilizers, which were chemical fertilizer CHF; N, P, K (20-20-20+15 SO3) added as 40 kg da-1 organic fertilizer (OF) added as 2000 kg da-1 and developed organic fertilizer (DOF) added as 2000 kg da-1. Total irrigation water of 305 mm and 360 mm were applied to I100 irrigation treatment, in which water use was determined as 447 mm and 436 mm, respectively. In both experiment years, the effect of irrigation level on fruit yield was found to be significant statistically (p<0.05) but the effect of fertilizers treatments and irrigation x fertilizer interaction was insignificant (p>0.05). The highest yield with 3681and 4515 kg da-1 was harvested from I100 irrigation treatment, and the lowest yield with 3021 and 2792 kg da-1 from I40 irrigation treatment, respectively. As for fertilizer, the highest yield with 3462 and 3878 kg da-1 was harvested from DOF, while the lowest yield with 3258 and 3629 kg da-1 from OF, respectively. Water use efficiency (WUE) ranged from 8.26 to 12.54 kg mm-1 and irrigation water use efficiency (IWUE) from 11.9 to 25.68 kg mm-1 in the experimental years. Thus, in irrigation programming, the Kcp3: 0.80 plant-pan coefficient and in fertilizer application, DOF is recommended for field-grown eggplant.