Yield and Physical Quality of the Yellow Passion Fruit under Spacing within Plants and Water Salinity

Abstract

Aims: The aim of this work was to evaluate the yield and the physical quality of the yellow passion fruit accession ‘Guinezinho’ as a function of the within-row plant spacing, with saline irrigation water in consecutive growing seasons.
 Study Design: The experiment was arranged in randomized blocks, with four replicates and 12 plants per parcel, in a 4 x 2 factorial arrangement, referring to the spacing in the planting lines of 3, 6, 9 and 12 m, and two consecutive growing seasons.
 Place and Duration of Study: The experiment was developed in the municipality of Coronel Ezequiel, Rio Grande do Norte state, Brazil, within the months of April 2013 and October 2014.
 Methodology: The seedings were transplanted in the spacings of 3, 6, 9 and 12 m, and distant 2 m within lines according to the treatments; they were conducted in a vertical shoot position (VSP) training system, and daily irrigated during the arid period with saline water (ECiw = 3.4 dS m-1). The following characteristics were evaluated: fruit yield, fruit mass, longitudinal and transversal fruit diameter, pulp yield, peel mass and peel thickness.
 Results: The interaction between spacing and growing season exercised a significant effect on the fruit yield, longitudinal fruit diameter, pulp yield, thickness and mass of the peel (P = .05). The variables transversal diameter and fruit mass only varied within the growing seasons (P = .05). The plants cultivated in the 3 m spacing were the most productive in the two seasons, with 23.7 and 36.3 t ha-1, in the first and second seasons, respectively.
 Conclusion: The highest yield of the yellow passion fruit accession ‘Guinezinho’ was obtained in the smaller plant spacing in the lines. Except for the pulp yield, the yield and physical quality of the fruits were superior in the second growing season. The irrigation with highly saline water, in this type of soil, did not compromise the productive ability of the passion fruit accession ‘Guinezinho’.

Effects of salinity on growth, physiological and anatomical traits of Passiflora species propagated from seeds and cuttings

“…The principal producing areas of passion fruit in the North-east are located in semi-arid regions and the water used for irrigation typically has high salt concentrations (Macedo et al 2019), which can impair the physical and chemical characteristics of the soil and thus affect the growth and development of crops (Brito et al 2014;Gadelha et al 2017). The high electrical conductivity of the soil and groundwater in various producing areas hinders the formation of seedlings and establishment of passion fruit crops (Cavalcante et al 2009;Bezerra et al 2016).…”

“…Andrade et al (2018) evaluated physiological and growth aspects in the seedlings of two varieties of yellow passion fruit and observed that inhibition of germination was affected by high levels of salinity in irrigation water. Macedo et al (2019) also evaluated the yield and physical fruit quality of yellow passion fruit under saline conditions and found that the irrigation with highly saline water did not compromise the productive capacity. Since many of these studies have only evaluated the morphophysiological and agronomic responses of plants grown from seeds and irrigated with brackish water, there is little information on the behavior of passion fruit plants propagated asexually (via cuttings) under saline conditions (Moura et al 2019).…”