Response of cucumber to drip irrigation water under a rainshelter

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.agwat.2005.03.002Get rights and content

Abstract

The experiments were conducted to evaluate the effects of different amount of irrigation water on the growth and yield of cucumber under a rainshelter from May to October for two seasons in Yamaguchi University, Japan. For spring experiment, the amount of irrigation water applied was 0.50, 0.75, and 1.00 times of water surface evaporation (Ep) measured by a standard 0.2 m diameter pan, regimes were denoted as Ep0.50, Ep0.75, and Ep1.00. Same method for autumn experiment, regimes were denoted as Ep0.75, Ep1.00, Ep1.25, Ep1.50, and Ep1.75. The results showed that amount of irrigation water significantly affected plant growth and fruit production. Plant height and biomass increased, but specific leaf weight (SLW, g/m2) decreased with increasing amount of irrigation water. The SLW and leaf blade water content were directly response to the applied irrigation water and soil water content, and the SLW of cucumber was decreased with the leaf blade water content increasing. The amount of irrigation water had significant effects on decreasing the leaf temperature, and the largest differences in leaf temperature with Ep1.75 regime were 2.1, 2.6, 4.7, and 5.8 °C for Ep1.50, Ep1.25, Ep1.00, and Ep0.75 regimes at noon. Plant biomass (dried stem and leaves), the number of lateral branches and production were highest for spring regime Ep1.00 and autumn regime Ep1.75 that the plant received the most amount of irrigation water. During the cucumber growth period of 5 months from May to September for the plant and fruit growth, the crop coefficient K should be more than 1.00 that is a guideline and it is better between 1.00 and 1.50, and the average irrigated water of 4.0–5.5 mm/day is necessary for plant and fruits growth. Therefore, applying water by drip irrigation in relation to the amount of water evaporated from a standard 0.2 m diameter pan is a convenient, simple, easy, and low cost method under a rainshelter.

Introduction

Cucumber (Cucumis sativus L.) is a widely used and important vegetable in the world and a sensitive plant to water stress. The ideal conditions for cucumber growth include high and nearly constant soil matric potential, high soil oxygen diffusion rate, adequate incoming radiation, and optimal soil nutrients. Among the environmental factors, soil water is an important limiting factor in the production and quality of cucumbers. Many irrigation experiments have shown that cucumber is sensitive to moisture stress (Eliades, 1988, Ells et al., 1989, Janoudi and Widders, 1993, Staub and Navazio, 1993) because it has a sparse root system that approximately 85% of the root length is concentrated in the upper 0.3 m soil layer (Randall and Locascio, 1988).

Scheduling water application is very critical to make the most efficient use of drip irrigation system, as excessive irrigation can reduce yield, while inadequate irrigation causes water stress and reduces production. On the other hand, the intensity of the operation requires that the water supply be kept at the optimum level to maximum returns to the farmer. The optimal use of irrigation can be characterized as the supply of sufficient water according to plant needs in the rooting area, and at the same time, avoiding the leaching of nutrients into deeper soil levels. High-frequency water management by drip irrigation minimises soil as a storage reservoir for water, provides at least daily requirements of water to a portion of the root zone of each plant, and maintains a high soil matric potential in the rhizosphere to reduce plant water stress.

A widely adopted method for estimating crop consumptive water use (CWU) is the evaporation pan method, which relates evaporation from a Class A Weather Bureau evaporation pan to CWU. These two quantities are related by what is called the crop coefficient, K. Irrigation scheduling based on the K is one of the simplest methods where no sophisticated instrument is required. Precise values for K are often difficult to establish, given regional and site-specific, soil characteristic, crop physiology, and cultural practices. Any recommended value of K for a regional irrigation scheduling programmed must be high enough to prevent water stress arising from emergencies and specialized local situations, while remaining low enough for efficient water management.

Based on the U.S. Weather Service Class A pan evaporation, many studies on the irrigation of cucumber have been completed (Eliades, 1988, Randall and Locascio, 1988). In addition, there were also other works about different crops, which were irrigated according to the pan evaporation and have been done, such as broccoli, carrot, rape, cabbage (Imtiyaz et al., 2000), tomato (Locascio and Smajstrla, 1996), and potato (Ferreira and Carr, 2002, Panigrahi et al., 2001). The standard diameter of 0.2 m pan is a common instrument used to observe the water surface evaporation in China and in Japan (Yuan et al., 2001, Yuan et al., 2003, Yuan et al., 2004) and is equivalent to the U.S. Weather Service Class A pan. Therefore, applying water by drip irrigation in relation to the amount of water evaporated from a standard 0.2 m diameter pan would also be a convenient method to schedule irrigation, as standard 0.2 m diameter pan evaporation data are relatively easy to obtain, though good pan evaporation data requires careful measurements and frequent maintenance.

The objectives of this study is: (1) to find the effects of water application amount during drip irrigation on cucumber growth and yield; (2) to find relationship between the water requirements of cucumber and a standard 0.2 m diameter pan evaporation; (3) to find the optimum value of crop coefficient K for drip irrigation scheduling of cucumber under controlled conditions.

Section snippets

Materials and methods

Experiments were conducted two times during spring and autumn under a rainshelter from May to July and from August to October at the farm of Yamaguchi University, Japan (latitude 34°09N, longitude 131°27E and altitude 17 m above sea level) in 2002. The rainshelter was made of a steel frame and covered by 0.1 mm thick white clear polyethylene (PE) film, which was 20 m long from east to west and 2.5 m wide, and the middle ridge height was 2.2 m. The climate is warm–temperate, humid marine in this

Water application

Under the rainshelter, irrigation water is the only source of moisture to the plants and there is no rainfall and no run-off using the drip irrigation systems. If the deep percolation and changes of soil water storage before and after the experiment is not considered, evapotranspiration of the cucumber is equal to the applied irrigation water.

During spring experimental period from 7 May to 27 July, pan evaporation increased with the air temperature, the cumulative water applied for different

Conclusions

In the drip irrigation experiment, effects of different irrigation water based on the pan evaporation under a rainshelter on the cucumber growth and yield were studied for two seasons. The results showed that amount of irrigation water significantly affected plant growth and fruit production. Plant height and biomass increased, but specific leaf weight (g/m2) decreased with increasing amount of irrigation water. The SLW was decreased with the leaf blade water content increasing. The amount of

Acknowledgements

This paper is a part of my doctor thesis in Japan. The authors would like to thank the reviewers for perceptive comments and corrections on the manuscript.

References (17)

There are more references available in the full text version of this article.

Cited by (46)

  • Effect of potassium fertilization on roselle yield and yield components as well as IWUE under deficit irrigation regime

    2022, South African Journal of Botany
    Citation Excerpt :

    If the water deficit becomes severe, diminishing the yield will be inevitable. Generally, based on the results of this research, the ascending trend of yield production with an increase in water has also been reported by other researchers (Cakir et al., 2017; Yuan et al., 2006; El-Mageed and Semida, 2015b). Nevertheless, obtaining greater yield under conditions with water deficit is not correct, and IWUE as well as economic indicators must be considered.

  • Evaluation of cucumber yield, economic benefit and water productivity under different soil matric potentials in solar greenhouses in North China

    2021, Agricultural Water Management
    Citation Excerpt :

    The researchers cited the high irrigation amount and nitrogen application level in greenhouses as the main reasons for the deeper NO3-N distribution and faster movement rate compared to those in wheat-maize fields. Cucumber crop is much sensitive to soil water condition and irrigation amount (Yuan et al., 2006; Abdalhi et al., 2016). The highest cucumber yield in greenhouses was found when the soil water content was higher than 85% field capacity (FC) (Hossain et al., 2018; Li et al., 2019).

  • Yield, nitrogen uptake and nitrogen leaching of tunnel greenhouse grown cucumber in a shallow groundwater region

    2019, Agricultural Water Management
    Citation Excerpt :

    Cucumber is one of the most important vegetable crops grown in these tunnels in the middle and lower reaches of Yangtze River. Due to its high yield and sparse root system, cucumber always needs adequate water and nutrient supply and is very sensitive to the content of water and available nitrogen (N) in the soil (Yuan et al., 2006). The response of cucumber yield, water use efficiency (WUE) and N use efficiency (NUE) to different irrigation and fertilization strategies has been studied in detail in the past decades in different regions of the world (Beyaert et al., 2007; Grewal et al., 2011; Kotsiras et al., 2002; Mao et al., 2003; Ruiz and Romero, 2002; Sánchez-Guerrero et al., 2009; Şimşek et al., 2005; Yan et al., 2013; Zhang et al., 2012; Zhao et al., 2012).

View all citing articles on Scopus
View full text