Characterising root density of peach trees in a semi-arid Chernozem to increase plant density

Abstract

A b s t r a c t. The available information on root system in fully mature peach orchards in semi-arid regions is insufficient. This paper presents a study on the root system density in an irrigated peach orchard from Dobrogea, Romania, using the trench technique. The old orchard has clean cultivation in inter-row and in-row. The objectives of the study were to: test the hypothesis that the roots of fully mature peach trees occupy the whole soil volume; find out if root repulsive effect of adjacent plants occurred for the rootstocks and soil conditions; find relationships between root system and soil properties and analyse soil state trend. Some soil physical properties were significantly deteriorated in inter-row versus in-row, mainly due to soil compaction induced by technological traffic. Density of total roots was higher in-row than inter-row, but the differences were not significant. Root density decreased more intensely with soil depth than with distance from tree trunks. Root density correlated with some soil properties. No repulsive effect of the roots of adjacent peach trees was noted. The decrease of root density with distance from trunk can be used in optimising tree arrangement. The conclusions could also be used in countries with similar growth conditions.

Assessing the extent of citrus trees root apparatus under deficit irrigation via multi-method geo-electrical imaging

“…The distributions of average root length density of the cherry trees were highest at around 20 cm depth and decreased with increasing depth. In similar studies, the percentage of roots in the shallowest 10 cm of soil accounted for up to 32% of the total roots distribution of peach trees 33,34 , while for apricot and peach trees a cumulative 75–80% of roots was observed in the top 0.5 m of the soil profile. The use of water stable isotopes is also a promising approach to help calibrating RWU models.…”

“…Overall, the most important lesson from the previous studies is that root length density profiles are site-specific, and depend on species and water application. Consequently, the rate and the spatial distribution of root water uptake varies significantly, depending on soil water availability 13,26 , the distance from the tree trunk 34,36 , the tree age 37 , the intensity of meteorological factors during the day 32 , but also is different in the growing season 6,38 and depends on soil practices 39 . Finally, root length density distributions may be estimated from dynamic soil moisture measurements 40,41 .…”

Root density of cherry trees grafted on prunus mahaleb in a semi-arid region

“…Thus, the evolutionary trend of soil properties after long-term orchard exploitation, eg 10 to 15 years more, involves worsening in soil physical properties even in fertile soils like the Calcaric Calcic Chenrozems of this region. However, unlike other older orchards with various species (eg apricot, 15 years old and peach, 22 years old) in the region (Paltineanu et al, 2015(Paltineanu et al, , 2016, the soil physical properties from the cherry orchard show more favourable properties. This finding emphasizes the fact that the duration of orchard works, the soil type, and the planting distance of trees may have contributed to different soil compaction levels.…”

“…According to Black et al (2010), total root biomass distribution does not differ significantly among cherry rootstocks, yet this finding cannot be confirmed or contradicted in this paper. Cherry roots horizontally occupied the entire soil space between the studied trees after 11 years from planting and, unlike apricot and peach trees (Paltineanu et al, 2015(Paltineanu et al, , 2016, root density was much higher in the case of cherry, showing the great vigour of the rootstock. However, root density slightly decreased with distance from the trunk.…”

“…In the region, Indreias (1997) investigated the effect of rootstocks on the distribution of some fruit tree roots on chernozems, while more recently Paltineanu et al (2015Paltineanu et al ( , 2016 reported the magnitude of root distribution of mature apricot trees and peach trees as well as the effect of the technological traffic on soil properties. The common planting scheme in the region was based on the rootstock type, canopy shape, solar angle at noon, orchard management, and soil fertility (Ceausescu et al, 1982).…”