Advancing knowledge about restricted irrigation strategies on commercial peach plantation under Mediterranean condition

Abstract

This study was conducted to investigate the effects of different restricted irrigation strategies on peach trees. Sustainable and regulated deficit irrigation treatments were applied during the 2018/2019 production season in a commercial plot of “Bénédicte” variety located at the Atlas Mountain’s region of Morocco. Five different treatments were tested: T1, T2 and T3 with an application of respectively 125% (over-irrigation), 100% (control) and 75% (deficit-irrigation) of Crop Water Requirement (CWR) throughout the whole crop cycle; These treatments were classified under Sustainable Deficit Irrigation treatments (SDI). Regulated Deficit Irrigation treatments (RDI) comprising of treatments T4, and T5 which correspond respectively to applications of 75% ETc and 50% ETc during the pit hardening stage (PH), and 100% ETc during the rest of the cycle. The results showed that deficient irrigation treatments had no effect on vegetative growth parameters.A downward trend in average fruit weight and size at harvest was observed in the T3 treatment. A significant increase in sugar content was observed in T3 and T5 compared to the control T2. With regard to biochemical parameters, the deficient treatment (T5) recorded the highest proline content in response to water stress, followed by T3 and T4. Therewas no significant difference between the crop yields under SDI and RDI treatments, but T4 produced arelatively higher yield of 47 T/Haamong the treatments.Thisled to the water use efficiency (WUE) performance ranking: T3 with 10.63 kg/m3, T4 (75% PH) was in second place with a WUE of 9.6 kg/m3, finally T5 with an efficiency of 9.35 kg/m3.