Effects of Three Irrigation Strategies on Gas Exchange Relationships, Plant Water Status, Yield Components and Water Productivity on Grafted Carménère Grapevines

Abstract

In the Chilean viticultural industry, Carménère is considered an emblematic cultivar that is cultivated mainly in arid and semi-arid zones. For this reason, it is necessary to use precise irrigation scheduling for improving water use efficiency (WUE), water productivity (WP), yield and wine quality. This study evaluated the effects of three deficit irrigation strategies on gas exchange variables, WUE, WP and yield components in a drip-irrigated Carménère vineyard growing under semi-arid climatic conditions during two consecutive seasons (2011/12 and 2012/13). The irrigation strategies were applied in completely randomized design from fruit set (S) to harvest (H). The first irrigation strategy (T1) involved continuous irrigation at 100% of actual evapotranspiration (ETa) from S to the veraison (V) period and at 80% of ETa from V to H. The second irrigation strategy (T2) involved irrigation at 50% of ETa from S to H and the third one (T3) involved no-irrigation from S to V and at 30% of ETa from V to H. The results indicated that there was a significant non-linear correlation between net CO2 assimilation (AN) and stomatal conductance (gs), which resulted in three zones of water stress (zone I = gs > 0.30 mol H2O m-2s-1; zone II = between 0.06 and 0.30 mol H2O m-2s-1; and zone III = gs < 0.06 mol H2O m-2s-1). The use of less water by T2 and T3 had a significant effect on yield components, with a reduction in the weight and diameter of grapes. A significant increase in WP (7.3 kg m-3) occurred in T3, which resulted in values of WUE that were significantly higher than those from T1 and T2. Also, a significant non-linear relationship between the integral water stress (SIΨ) and WP (R2 = 0.74) was established. The results show that grafted Carménère vines were tolerant to water stress although differences between cultivars/genotypes still need to be evaluated.

Optimizing precision irrigation of a vineyard to improve water use efficiency and profitability by using a decision-oriented vine water consumption model

“…These values agree with WP values in other studies of 2.4 kg m −3 (Texeira et al 2009) and 3.4 kg m −3(Atroosh et al 2013), whereas a study in Chile reported WP values of 4.1-7.3 kg m −3 depending on the irrigation strategy employed(Zuñiga et al 2018). However, this wide variability in the reported WP values is strongly influenced by differences in canopy management and cluster thinning, environmental conditions and rootstock variety.…”

Gluconacetobacter diazotrophicus mitigates drought stress in Oryza sativa L.

“…The gas exchange constitutes an important parameter for evaluation of the photosynthetic activity, which is crucial to determine the adaptation and stability of plants subjected to different environmental adversities, as the variation in photosynthetic rates implies alterations in growth as well as the productivity (Zúñiga et al 2018). We noted that stomatal conductance was negatively affected by water deficiency, both in uninoculated and inoculated red rice plants.…”

Application of Fractions of Crop Evapotranspiration Affects Carbon Partitioning of Grapevine Differentially in a Hot Climate

“…-1.2 MPa; however, they are not sufficient to impair grapevine physiology and metabolism in warm climates ( Romero et al, 2010 ). Previous studies highlighted that plant water status is closely related to leaf gas exchange parameters ( Chaves et al, 2010 ; Zúñiga et al, 2018 ; Villalobos-González et al, 2019 ; Brillante et al, 2020 ). Thus, low values of SWP were related to decreased g s likely because plants subjected to mild to moderate water deficit close their stomata as an early response to water scarcity to diminish water loss and carbon assimilation ( Chaves et al, 2003 ).…”