Orchard Level Assessment of Irrigation Performance and Water Productivity of an Irrigation Community in Eastern Spain

Abstract

Over the last three decades, a great investment effort has been made in the modernization of irrigation in the Valencian Community (Spain). The initial change from distribution networks to pressurized ones and the shift towards drip irrigation systems was followed by improvements in irrigation scheduling, based on agrometeorological data, soil water content sensors, and remote sensing. These improvements are considered adequate for increasing irrigation water use efficiency, but it is difficult to find systematic measurements to assess its impacts on irrigation adequacy along with irrigation productivity in fruit orchards. This work presents the results of a four year assessment of irrigation water and energy use efficiency along with water productivity of a recently established irrigation community in the province of Valencia (Spain). The study was carried out at the orchard level and focused on two fruit crops: persimmon and peach trees. Six irrigation performance indicators, relative water supply (RWS), relative irrigation supply (RIS), yield performance (Yp), global water productivity (WPoverall), output per unit irrigation water (OUI), and the percent of nitrogen fertilization obtained by irrigation water, were defined and calculated for years 2017 to 2020 in 104 persimmon and peach orchards. The results showed that most of the farmers irrigated below the crop water requirements, showing RWS and RIS values less than 1, and there was great variability among farmers, especially in WPoverall and OUI indicators.

Effects of Living Mulch and Branches Mulching on Soil Moisture, Temperature and Growth of Rain-Fed Jujube Trees

“…This contradicts the findings of Li et al [ 33 ] and Hernández et al [ 34 ] that grass cultivation in orchards can increase soil moisture content. For instance, orchards in southern China receive an average of more than 800 mm of precipitation annually, and orchards in certain developed countries may be irrigated or receive a great deal of local precipitation [ 35 , 36 , 37 , 38 ]. The effect of planting grass on water retention in orchards is somewhat different, as this study focuses primarily on arid and semi-arid rain-fed agricultural environments.…”