Agro-physiological response of potato to “sustainable” deficit irrigation in the plain of Saïs, Morocco

Abstract

Morocco is one of the countries who’s facing an insufficient water supply for irrigation, therefore it is seeking for new technologies allowing irrigation management evolution. Deficit irrigation is for this reason one of the recommended approaches to deal with this alarming situation. This study deals with the assessment of Sustainable Deficit Irrigationon potatoes production (Var. Desiree). The experiment was conducted on an experimental plot in open field in Morocco. Three water regimes were applied: T1control (100%), T2 (75%) and T3 (50%) of crop evapotranspiration ETc. This is a complete random block device with four repetitions. Measurements focused on monitoring vegetative, ecophysiological and yield parameters. The results obtained show that: (i)the irrigation regime did not significantly affect the eco-physiological parameters nor the vegetative parameters, except for the height of the plants; (ii) in terms of yield, a deficit of less than 25% of ETc did not lead to a significant difference compared to the control treatment and reached 41, 17 tones/ha compared to the 100% ETc with 42, 51 t/ha; (iii) irrigated treatments at less than 50% of daily ETc revealed extreme yield loss (20, 96 Tonnes/ha);(iv) finally, the best agronomic water use efficiency was recorded for irrigated treatments at 75% of Etc.