Production of green cowpea beans fertigated by continuous and pulse drip irrigation

Abstract The objective of this work was to evaluate the production of green cowpea beans under conventional fertilization, different fertigation depths, and replacement of crop evapotranspiration (ETc) through continuous and pulse drip irrigation. The experimental design was a randomized complete block with 12 treatments distributed in a 5x2+2 factorial arrangement, with five ETc replacement irrigation depths (40, 60, 80, 100, and 120%), combined with two types of fertigation application (pulse and continuous) plus two additional treatments with pulse (control 1) and continuous (control 2) irrigation at 100% of ETc under conventional fertilization. The analyzed variables were: number of pods, number of grains, fresh and dry mass of pods and grains, and total shoot fresh and dry mass. Cowpea showed a better productive performance at the fertigation depths between 80 and 100% of ETc. Moreover, pulse fertigation promotes higher yields for all production variables analyzed. Regardless of the type of application (pulse or continuous), the productive variables show better results at the fertigation depths estimated for maximum physical efficiency than in the treatments with conventional fertilization and irrigation with a depth of 100% of ETc.