Effects of Irrigation and Fertigation on Yield and Quality Parameters of ’Gala‘ and ’Fuji‘ Apple

Abstract

The climate change and growing production of crops increase the demand for the water and the efficient use of water in agriculture becomes more critical. This experiment presents the results of research in the orchard with different irrigation programs and fertigation on yield and quality parameters of the ’Gala‘ and ’Fuji‘ apple tree. Three irrigation programs were applied IR + F – full irrigation with fertigation; IR – full irrigation without fertigation; NON‑IR – non‑irrigation, only natural precipitations. There were no differences observed among these three irrigation programs for tree diameter, sugar content, starch content and fruits firmness (P < 0.05). Significant deficit of water was in program IR and NON‑IR, at the length of annual growth, where the reduction was from from 680 mm to 440 mm at the ‘GALA’ variety. Statistically important differences between the irrigation variants were found out at the variety ‘Fuji’, in parametres yield, fruit weight and fruit diameter. Between programs IR + F and NON‑IR was the difference of fruit weight 25.6 g (14.3 %) and of fruit diameter 4.5 mm (5.8 %).

Keywords

• irrigation
• fertilization
• apple
• ’Gala‘
• ’Fuji‘