Patterns of soil water distribution and uptake by young almond trees under drip irrigation
1991
Holzapfel, Eduardo A. (Concepcion Univ., Chillan (Chile). Fac. de Ciencias Agropecuarias y Forestales) | Fereres, Elias | Valenzuela, Alejandro
Studies on soil water distribution and uptake under drip irrigation were conducted on a three year-old almond orchard near Colusa, California. The distribution of the water applied through two emitters per tree was monitored using a neutron probe and tensiometers placed throughout the root zone of three representative trees. Increasing the interval between irrigations from daily to five days resulted in an enlargement of the wetted zone as well as in greater fluctuations in soil water content before and after irrigation. For a given irrigation amount, irrigating at night resulted in a greater wetted soil volume than irrigating during the daytime due to the effects of tree water uptake. Water uptake was highest under the emitters at the 15 to 45 cm depths and decreased as root length density values declined. The very high water uptake rates measured (9 x 10-3 cm3/cm root/d) were due to the confinement of the tree root system to the small soil volume wetted by the emitters
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