INFLUENCE OF REDUCING IRRIGATION RATE AND ADDITION OF SUPER ABSORBENT POLYMER ON PEACH TREES GROWTH UNDER NORTH SINAI CONDITIONS

Authors

1 Unit. Fruit, Dept. Plant Prod.; Cent. Desert Res., Egypt.

2 Dept. Plant Prod., Fac. Environ. Agric. Sci., Arish Univ., Egypt.

Abstract

Peach trees (Prunus persica L.) about 6 -years- old planted in sandy soil were used and spaced at 4 × 5 m and received nearly the same cultural care under drip irrigation system during 2013/2014 and 2014/2015 seasons in private Farm "Sleem Elbalwy" orchard at "El-Masmy" farms area in El-Arish district, North Sinai Governorate, Egypt to study the effect of regulated deficit irrigation and super absorbent polymer on vegetative growth of peach trees under North-Sinai Conditions. Three irrigation treatments were applied: a control (100 % of ETc) and two regulated deficit irrigation at 75 % and 50 % of ETc treatments using modified Penman and Monteith's modified equation and three polymer additions: No addition (control), 25 g/tree and 50 g/tree. The results showed that treated with 100% ETc achieved the highest value of each of number of new shoot, new shoots length, new shoots diameter, number of leaves per new shoots, leaf area and tree circumference followed by 75% in both seasons while irrigated with 50% ETc gave the lowest values. Also, the results showed that addition 50g/tree of super absorbent polymer increased all vegetative growth parameters followed by trees treated with 25g/tree compared with no addition treatment in both seasons. All treatments were applied on December 20th in both seasons.  Results indicate that regulated deficit irrigation at 75% of ETc, addition 50g absorbent polymer/tree showed the highest increase in vegetative growth compared with 50% of ETc treatment.

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Sinai Journal of Applied Sciences
Volume 6, Issue 3
December 2017
Pages 249-258

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