ISHS Acta Horticulturae 493: I ISHS Workshop on Water Relations of Grapevines
A DRIP IRRIGATION STRATEGY FOR MAXIMIZING GRAPEVINE WATER USE EFFICIENCY IN TROPICAL VINEYARDS OF VENEZUELA |
| Authors: | F.J. Araujo, A. Faría, C. Sanchez, W. Nickel, Y. Rivero, T. Urdaneta |
| Keywords: | Drip irrigation, grapevine, tropic, pan coefficient, roots, water use efficiency |
| Abstract:
A drip irrigation experiment was conducted (1988–1994) at the Centro Viticola, near Maracaibo, with the aim of defining an optimum irrigation strategy for grapevines. Low, medium and high irrigation treatments were imposed based on different irrigation amounts which varied from pruning to fruit-set, fruit-set to veraison and veraison to fruit maturation. Using data from 9 growing cycles a quadratic relationship was found between cycle pan coefficient (Kp) and relative yield which explained 54% of the yield variation. Maximum fruit yield and quality and high water use efficiencies were obtained with cycle Kp between 0.38 and 0.57, which were equivalent to 2330 to 3500 L/vine/cycle. These amounts represent about 50 to 70% of the vine local irrigation consumption. Overall results suggested using Kp of 0.2, 0.6 and 0.4 for the different cycle stages, which were equivalent to 12, 35 and 23 L/vine/day/stage. The development stage from pruning to fruit-set was little affected by the irrigation regime. Most of the roots were evenly distributed between 20 and 80 cm soil depth. Roots were less abundant in the low irrigation treatment. As a result of the type of soil and root growth characteristics, the application of excess irrigation water was needed to adequately wet the soil volume for satisfactory vine performance and this prevented a high WUE. | |
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