Effect of partial rootzone drying on growth, yield and fruit quality of ‘Starkrimson’ apple cultivar (Malus domestica Borkh)

This study aims to evaluate the effect of partial rootzone drying (PRD) on the apple tree growth, production and fruit quality.
For this purpose, the soil water status, shoot growth, yield and fruit quality were evaluated for five-year-old ‘Starkrimson’ apple under two different irrigation strategies: full irrigation (CI) and partial rootzone drying (PRD). For PRD strategy only the half of the root zone is irrigated alternatively.
Saving 50% of water, PRD strategy ensured a similar yield with CI and didn’t affect the morphometric profile of proleptic and sylleptic shoots.
Similarly, no significant differences was showed among CI and PRD treatments for the most of the fruit quality parameters, such as fruit firmness, sugar content, acidity, coloration and starch index.
However, slightly reduction in apple weight was showed for PRD strategy in comparison with CI. On the other hand, results obtained in this study confirmed the allometric relationships between primary and secondary growth for the apple tree.

X International Symposium on Modelling in Fruit Research and Orchard Management

M. Ben Messaouda, M.K. Aounallah, S. Hammami, T. Bettaieb, A. Sahli

chilling, heat requirement, base temperature, apple tree, partial rootzone drying, fruit yield, fruit quality

https://doi.org/10.17660/ActaHortic.2017.1160.58