El-Naggar. Y. I. T. A. Eid and S. A. M. Ali( 2018). Effects of Mulching Soil on Water Consumption, Yield, Fruit Quality and
Water Use Efficiency of "Canino" Apricot (Prunus Armeniaca L.) Cultivar
J. Plant Production, Mansoura Univ., Vol. 9 (12): 1003 - 1012, 2018
Abstract: The present work was conducted at El-Kanater Horticultural Research Station on Canino apricot trees during 2016 and 2017 growing seasons to study the effect of different irrigation regimes (irrigation at both 25 and 50 % of available soil moisture depletion) under mulching treatments; (black polyethylene plastic, white plastic and rice straw mulching) on evapotranspiration, water use efficiency, vegetative growth measurements, yield and fruit quality beside economic studies were also done. The most important results can be summarized as follows: Water consumption use (WCU) was increased in the case of frequent irrigation at 25 % of available soil moisture depletion (I1) value which was found to be 4137.4 and 3206.9 m3/fed. in both growing seasons, respectively. Regarding mulching treatments, the values of the water consumption use were increased under both no mulching and rice straw mulching compared with either black plastic or white plastic mulching. Also, black plastic, white plastic and rice straw mulching generally led to increase (WUE) by 81.1 %, 55.6 % and 32.2 % over the un-mulched treatment, respectively in both seasons and Kc values as compared to unmulched treatments. Moreover, all investigated fruiting parameters (fruit set %, tree yield either as kg or as No. of fruits per tree, ton/fed and yield increment % as compared to the control) were significantly increased as a result of using mulching treatments in comparison with the control. It is quite clear that, leaf N, P and K contents were increased by using both black polyethylene plastic and white plastic
mulching treatments in most cases as compared with control. Concerning the economic study, data indicated that, all mulching treatments were resulted in the higher values of profit per feddan as compared to the control treatment. Moreover the pest effective treatment in this respect was mulching with black plastic during both seasons of study. In general, it could be concluded that, both mulching treatments either with black polyethylene plastic or white plastic were most effective.
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