Partial Root-Zone Drying Technique: from Water Saving to the Improvement of a Fruit Quality

Abstract

Due to climate changes and increased demands of different water users (agriculture, industry, domestic) water becomes scarce resources worldwide. Since irrigated agriculture is the one of the largest consumer of these resources (so-called blue water footprint), irrigation management must be shifted from maximal production per crop area to maximal production per unit of water used by crops. Among the strategies for reducing water footprints, changing the full irrigation to the reduced crop's water supply (deficit irrigation techniques) is one of the options. In this mini-review, we present the latest advances of partial root-zone drying (PRD) applications in different agricultural plants, with the special emphases on the PRD effects on increasing WUE, yield and yield quality. We describe two PRD practical approaches (alternate and fixed), background of PRD induced increase in yield and water use efficiency and improved understanding about nutrient use efficiency. The evidence of PRD effect on the increase in nutritional and health attributes of yield in different species is also presented. Because of limited available data, further research is needed to understand complex biosynthetic pathway and synthesis of nutritive-and health-related metabolites and antioxidants in PRDtreated plants. Practical application and promotion of this knowledge will allow farmers in water scarce areas to adapt PRD not only as a strategy for saving water, improving nutrient use and increase/sustain yield, but also for producing food with enhanced nutritive and health characteristics.

Review of water deficit mediated changes in vine and berry physiology; Consequences for the optimization of irrigation strategies

“…The wet side delivers enough water to the plant to avoid water stress, while the drying half is linked to the reduction of g s PRD is based on the knowledge that roots produce hormonal and hydraulic signals (as discussed previously) that reduce g s and thereby improves WUE (Gil et al, 2018;Stoll et al, 2000;Tombesi et al, 2018) Many studies compare physiological and qualitative effects of PRD and RD and several excellent reviews summarize the most important results (Chaves et al, 2010;Jovanovic and Stikic, 2018), and conclude that the effects are very similar between both strategies as shown by the meta-analysis of Sadras (2009). Recent deficit irrigation studies of Monastrell grafted on five different rootstocks (140Ru, 1103P, 110R, 161-49 and 41B) in the semiarid winegrowing region of D.O.…”

Alternate Partial Root-Zone Drip Nitrogen Fertigation Reduces Residual Nitrate Loss While Improving the Water Use but Not Nitrogen Use Efficiency

“…The repeated alternation of wetting/drying in the two root zones in APRI induces an abscisic acid (ABA)-based root-to-shoot chemical signaling, hydraulic signals, and an increased xylem sap pH to regulate the stomatal opening thereby increasing water use efficiency (WUE) (Kang and Zhang, 2004;Hu et al, 2011;Pérez-Pérez et al, 2018). For many plant species including cotton, corn, tomato, potato, cucumber, grape, and apple, APRI has been demonstrated to be an efficient water-saving irrigation technology that outperforms deficit irrigation by maintaining the yield and improving the WUE substantially (Kang and Zhang, 2004;Shahnazari et al, 2007;Dodd, 2009;Yactayo et al, 2013;Jovanovic and Stikic, 2018;Sarker et al, 2019). The main form in APRI application is the alternate furrow irrigation or alternate watering to different sides of the plants (Yactayo et al, 2013;Zhang et al, 2014;Sarker et al, 2019Sarker et al, , 2020Khalili et al, 2020).…”

Bibliometric analysis of water footprint research in countries of former Yugoslavia

“…This paper uses the term of "water footprint" in the abstract but the article itself does not describe research on the subject. The second one is a paper by Jovanovic and Stikic (2018) from the University of Belgrade. Their article is a review of irrigation practices and water footprint is used as an argument for the application of the partial root-zone drying strategy.…”