Journal
IRRIGATION SCIENCE
Volume 31, Issue 4, Pages 759-768Publisher
SPRINGER
DOI: 10.1007/s00271-012-0359-8
Keywords
-
Categories
Funding
- SIRRIMED project [FP7-KBBE-2009-3-245159]
- CONSOLIDER-INGENIO project [MEC CSD2006-0067]
- SENECA project [11872/PI/09]
- CICYT project [AGL2010-17553]
Ask authors/readers for more resources
The effect of irrigation water quality was investigated in a commercial mandarin orchard during four growing seasons using fresh water (EC a parts per thousand 1 dS m(-1)), irrigators' association water (EC = 1-3 dS m(-1)) and reclaimed water (RW) (EC a parts per thousand 3 dS m(-1)). RW had higher concentration of macro- and micronutrients, especially potassium, and the phytotoxic elements, boron, sodium and chlorides. The microbiological load in the different irrigation water sources showed a high seasonal variability, and all water sources occasionally exceeded health standards to irrigate fruit trees. In the RW treatment, an increase in soil salinity and leaf boron concentration was observed. The nutritional contribution of RW was high, providing 24 and 15 % of the annual nitrogen and phosphorus (N and P2O5) fertilizer requirement for mandarin oranges, respectively, and RW treatment satisfied the entire potassium requirement (K2O). An important fluctuation in the crop production was observed during the 4 years in the different water quality treatments. In general, quality parameters of mandarins were not affected. The results provide additional evidence that long-term effects must be studied to test sustainability when using RW irrigation on fruit trees.
Authors
I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.
Reviews
Recommended
No Data Available