Peach Irrigation under Soil Water Stress in the South-Eastern Part of Romania

The purpose of this paper is to report a study on the response of peach to water stress under sprinkler irrigation conditions in the south-eastern part of Romania, in order to use irrigation water as efficiently as possible. Three sprinkling irrigation regimes have been investigated in a two-year experiment: i) fully irrigated to field capacity, T1, ii) irrigated under stress conditions with various water amounts in: May (T2), June (T3), and July (T4) and iii) an un-irrigated control treatment (T5). Soil water potential was determined by installing resistance block type soil water potential sensors (Watermark) at four soil depths (20, 40, 60 and 80 cm) and these data were recorded by data loggers. Soil water content measurements were made on a weekly basis and both before and after irrigation application. The results show that, in order to save water, irrigation under water stress should be applied so that soil water content is allowed to decrease below 50% of the total available water within a soil depth of about 1 m. The rootstock should allow development of the rooting system down to the above depth to allow water uptake from a bigger soil volume. The maximum irrigation water use efficiency has been obtained in the water stress treatments.