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Yield and water relations of two apple cultivars under irrigation

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Abstract

Because of an increased incidence of drought, irrigation has become an important agricultural practice in formerly mesic regions. Efficient irrigation scheduling depends on a good knowledge of tree water relations. For three growing seasons, we monitored stem water potential (Ψstem) in two apple tree cultivars (Malus × domestica cv. ‘Red Jonaprince’ and ‘Gala Brookfield’) with and without irrigation. We also determined xylem potentials at 12% and 50% percent loss of conductivity (Ψ12, Ψ50) and vessel diameters in current-year shoots. To evaluate if trees are capable of osmotic adjustment, we measured turgor loss point (TLP), osmotic potential at full turgor, and the concentrations of organic osmolytes (proline, glucose, sucrose, and sorbitol) in leaves throughout the growing season. We found that Ψstem did not drop below − 1.6 MPa, which is well above the Ψ50 and TLP. Irrigated trees (ETc-100) had slightly higher Ψstem than trees without irrigation (ETc-0). The observed conditions in one of the 3 years resulted in similar yields but smaller fruit sizes of the non-irrigated trees. The triploid cultivar ‘Red Jonaprince’ had typically more negative Ψstem than the diploid cultivar ‘Gala Brookfield’, but ‘Gala Brookfield’ exhibited higher limitations in fruit growth during drought and shoot growth during wet periods. Concentrations of all measured osmolytes were higher in leaves of non-irrigated trees of ‘Gala Brookfield’ and increased during the season, while the pattern was more variable in ‘Red Jonaprince’. In summary, our results indicate that ‘Red Jonaprince’ favours hydraulic efficiency against safety, while ‘Gala Brookfield’ adopts a more conservative growth strategy.

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Data availability

The data of this study are available from the corresponding author upon request.

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Acknowledgements

The project was funded by the project QK1910165 Ministry of Agriculture, the Czech Republic. We thank Jana Fenclová and Vít Gloser for their technical assistance. Stefan Mayr is acknowledged for allowing access to the Cavitron device to measure the vulnerability curves. We thank two anonymous reviewers for their thoughtful comments on an earlier version of this paper.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Biology, Faculty of Science, University of Hradec Králové, Rokitanského 62, CZ-500 03, Hradec Králové, Czech Republic

    Lenka Plavcová, Radek Jupa, Zuzana Kovalíková & Aneta Mahrová

  2. Research and Breeding Institute of Pomology, Holovousy 129, CZ-508 01, Hořice, Czech Republic

    Martin Mészáros, Klára Scháňková & Jan Náměstek

  3. Department of Experimental Biology, Faculty of Science, Masaryk University, Kamenice 5, CZ-625 00, Brno, Czech Republic

    Radek Jupa

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  1. Lenka Plavcová
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L.P., M.M., R.J., K.S., Z.K. and A.M. conducted the measurements. L.P. wrote the main manuscript text with all authors contributing.

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Correspondence to Lenka Plavcová.

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Plavcová, L., Mészáros, M., Jupa, R. et al. Yield and water relations of two apple cultivars under irrigation. Irrig Sci 41, 543–556 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00271-022-00839-2

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