Stage wise water requirement for drip irrigated acid lime orchards in Rayalaseema region of Andhra Pradesh Lakshmi L Mukunda1,*, Ramana K.T. Venkata2, Shigure P.S.3, Srivastava A.K.4, Patil P. Prakash5,6 1Senior Scientist, AICRP on Fruits (Citrus), CRS, Dr YSRHU, Tirupati, Andhra Pradesh 2Principal Scientist, AICRP on Fruits (Citrus), CRS, Dr YSRHU, Tirupati, Andhra Pradesh 3Principal Scientist, ICAR-CCRI, Nagpur, Maharashtra 4Principal Scientist, ICAR-CCRI, Nagpur, Maharashtra 5Project Co-ordinator, AICRP on Fruits, ICAR-IIHR, Bangalore 6Dr YSR Horticultural University, AICRP on Fruits, CRS, Tirupati, Andhra Pardesh517 502 *Corresponding author: lmukunda@gmail.com
Online published on 25 May, 2023. Abstract An experiment on drip irrigation scheduling based on pan evaporation replenishment was conducted on 10 years old bearing acid lime orchard (Citrus auantifolia Swingle) cv. Balaji at AICRP on Fruits (Citrus), Citrus Research Station, Dr.Y.S.R Horticultural University, Tirupati during 2015–2020. Year was divided into six stages (stage 1 to stage VI) including two months in each stage. First treatment included irrigation scheduling with 30 and 40% ER, treatment two with 40 and 60% ER, treatment three with 60 and 80% ER, alternatively during stages I to VI. However, fourth and fifth treatments had irrigation with 80% ER and 30% ER, respectively, in all the stages. Maximum daily open pan evaporation (7.20mm) was recorded in April and minimum (4.16 mm) was recorded in January. The water requirement varied from 10 liters day-1 tree-1 in stage-V to 26 liters day-1 tree-1 in stage-II. Linear increase in vegetative and reproductive growth was observed with increase in irrigation water. Similarly, volumes of water applied increased with increased mean evaporation. The study concluded that drip irrigation scheduling with 60 to 80% ER alternatively, starting from January to December save 12% amount of water, without affecting yield (71.24 kg/plant and 19.74 t/ha) of acid lime with maximum benefit cost ratio (1.39) in Rayalaseema region of Andhra Pradesh. Top Keywords Stage wise, Drip irrigation, Water requirement, Acid lime, Vegetative growth, Reproductive growth. Top |