The research is devoted to the study of the southern chornozem water regime formation peculiarities in the sweet cherry orchards (the cultivar Krupnoplidna) under the influence of irrigation and mulching with synthetic and natural materials. The field experiments were conducted in 2016-2020 on the lands in the M.F. Sydorenko Melitopol Research Station of Horticulture of the Institute of Horticulture. The studies provide variants with the use of irrigation and natural moisture combined with different types of mulching materials: black and white agrofiber, straw, sawdust as well as the traditional system of the soil management under black fallow (control). The level of the pre-irrigation soil moisture on the variants with irrigation was 70 % of the least soil moisture in a layer of 0.6 m. Mulching of the sweet cherry trees rows with sawdust, straw and agrofiber under the natural conditions of moisture (without irrigation) did not avoid the lack of moisture in the soil. However, the natural materials (sawdust, straw) utilization caused a reduction in the duration of the periods of the acute lack of moisture and moisture retention of precipitations by 26 % relative to the fallow retention of the soil. But near the trunk strips mulching cannot be a complete alternative to the irrigation in the conditions of the South of Ukraine. Mulching the sweet cherry trees near the trunk strips combined with maintaining the pre-irrigation soil moisture level within 70 % of the least soil moisture had a significant impact on the drip irrigation regime indices of sweet cherry trees, being combined with irrigation enabled to reduce the number of irrigations and increase the inter-irrigation period, which contributed to water savings of almost 49 %. The greatest savings of the irrigation water was due to the natural materials use for mulching. That provided to savings of water resources, on the average, over three years of research over 36 %. Regarding the soil management influence system on the soil thermal regime, in particular, in the hottest period, it should be noted that mulching with sawdust brought about the lowest soil temperature indices. Thus, the maximum temperature under sawdust and straw was much as lower compared to the black fallow (6-20 0С on the soil surface, 0.5-4.0 °С – at a depth of 10 cm). The soil temperature under black agrofiber in some periods was even higher than under the black fallow by 0.5-3.3 °С.
The studies were devoted to determining the parameters of the nitrogen absorption and boom by of pome fruit crops intense in the conditions of Southern Ukraine and to assessing the expediency of these indices using to establish the plants requirements in mineral nutrition and rational fertilizers doses. The size and structure of the nitrogen boom by apple and pear trees, that is, the ratio between the nitrogen boom from pruned trees and fruits proved to depend on the varietal signs level of the crop yield, as well as on the doses, terms and methods of the mineral fertilizers application. However, the average nitrogen boom rates by these crops on the irrigated southern black soil did not exceed 25-52 kg N/ha, and this element absorption rate from mineral fertilizers was no more than 14-22 %. The investigations also showned that, with the maximum doses of the N90-120 fertilizer, the nitrogen boom with pruned trees increased by 11-31 % depending on the crop without significant increase of the orchard yield. In addition, when using nitrogen at doses significantly exceeding its boom, the soil accumulated an excess of nitrate compounds beyond the location of the bulk of the trees root system on vegetative rootstocks. Their amount achieved 17-35 % of the total nitrogen supplied to the soil during the entire fertilizer application period. This can cause both the increase of unproductive nitrogen loss, of environmental stress and the reduction of fertilizer payback, in agrocenoses due to the soil water contamination by nitrates. Considering the above mentioned facts as well as taking into account the ability of fruit crops to re-utilize the nutrients from the vegetative organs, the complex processes of the nitrogenous fund transformation of irrigated southern black soil, in particular, its ability to nitrogen mineralization, and the risk of the environmental contamination with nitrate compounds, the application of nitrogenous fertilizers doses higher than N60 in intense pome orchards in the south of Ukraine are not advisable in agronomic or environmental terms.
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