WATER RELATION OF POTATO – RESPONSE TO IRRIGATION FREQUENCY AND QUANTITY

A field experiment was conducted at the Gilat experimental station in the Northern Negev.
The objective was to determine the irrigation requirement of spring sown potatoes under conditions of varying frequency and quantity of water.
Two irrigation methods were tried – sprinkle and drip on 2 varieties, Up-to-date and Desiree.

Yield was linearly related to the quantity of water applied in irrigation, independent of the irrigation frequency in the range of daily to weekly intervals.
The best yield of about 61 tons/ha was obtained with the maximum amount of water applied, of about 800 mm.
This amount was 1.2 times Class A pan evaporation during the main growing season.

The yield of Desiree was generally lower than Up-to-date under sprinkler irrigation.
The drip irrigation plots yielded somewhat more than the sprinkler plots.
Under drip irrigation with drip line per 2 plants rows, narrowing the spacing to 60 cm resulted in an 8% increase in yield compared with 90 cm spacing.

Symposium on Water Supply and Irrigation

J. Shalhevet, D. Shimshi, T. Meir, M. Susnovsky

https://doi.org/10.17660/ActaHortic.1979.89.9