Deficit irrigation applied in a peach orchard

The irrigation patterns in two peach orchards located at the region Beira Interior, south of "Gardunha" Mountain, and the effect of different amount of irrigation in the gross production and fruits quality were evaluated. The experiment was conducted in 2016, in two different orchards, and included three treatments correspondent to three different flow rate per tree: 8, 12 and 16 l/hour. The soil moisture was evaluated periodically with a FDR probe (DIVINER 2000), and the water balance included the water supply by rain and irrigation and the crop evapotranspiration. At harvest crop production, pulp firmness and percentage of total soluble solids were evaluated. There were no significant differences between treatments in the average production per tree. However, in one of the orchards production increased with the volume of irrigation. In the same orchard, the pulp firmness decreased with the increasing water supply. Total soluble solids had decreased with the increasing water supply in both orchards, probably as a consequence of the dilution effect due, directly, to the water incorporate in the fruits, or, indirectly, to the larger fruits produced by the more irrigated trees. In general, in the treatments used in this study as well as in the farmer's practices, the supplied water was in deficit, but the farmers tend empirically to follow closely the evolution of evapotranspiration.