Water Salinity Archives

2018 California

Environmental evaluation of high-value agricultural produce with diverse water sources: case study from Southern California

Authors: Bell, E.; Stokes-Draut, J.; Horvath, A.

Meeting agricultural demand in the face of a changing climate will be one of the major challenges of the 21st century. California is the single largest agricultural producer in the United States but is prone to extreme hydrologic events, including multi-year droughts. Ventura County is one of California's most productive growing regions but faces water shortages and deteriorating water quality. The future of California's agriculture is dependent on our ability to identify and implement alternative

Read full article

2021 Multiple

Water management and salinity adaptation approaches of Avocado trees: A review for hot-summer Mediterranean climate

Authors: Kourgialas, N.; Dokou, Z.

The production and consumption of avocado has increased significantly over the past years, experiencing a steady expansion into new markets around the world. This review paper focuses on avocado cultivation in its new markets with hot-summer Mediterranean climate. A significant literature gap exists on the viability of this crop in such data environments which experience limited availability of water in the summer exacerbated by climate change and potential salinity issues in irrigation water, typical

Read full article

2021 Israel

Rootstock-Dependent Response of Hass Avocado to Salt Stress

Authors: Lazare, S.; Cohen, Y.; Goldshtein, E.; Yermiyahu, U.; Ben-Gal, A.; Dag, A.

Salt stress is a major limiting factor in avocado (Persea americana) cultivation, exacerbated by global trends towards scarcity of high-quality water for irrigation. Israeli avocado orchards have been irrigated with relatively high-salinity recycled municipal wastewater for over three decades, over which time rootstocks were selected for salt-tolerance. This study's objective was to evaluate the physiological salt response of avocado as a function of the rootstock. We irrigated fruit-bearing 'Hass'

Read full article

2020 Israel

Mitigating negative effects of long-term treated wastewater application via soil and irrigation manipulations: Sap flow and water relations of avocado trees (Persea americana Mill.)

Authors: Nemera, D.B.; Bar-Tal, A.; Levy, G.; Lukyanov, V.; Tarchitzky, J.; Paudel. I.; Cohen, S.

Recent studies have shown significant negative effects of long-term irrigation with treated wastewater (TWW) on performance of orchards planted on clay soil. The aim of this study was to evaluate water use and water relations of different mitigation measures to remedy the declining performance of a mature commercial fruit-bearing 'Hass' avocado orchard (Persea americana Mill.) growing in a clay soil irrigated with TWW since 2009. The mitigation measures, each in 6 replicates, included freshwater

Read full article

2021 Israel

Mitigating negative effects of long-term treated wastewater irrigation: Leaf gas exchange and water use efficiency response of avocado trees (Persea americana Mill.)

Authors: Nemera, D.B.; Bar-Tal, A.; Levy, G.; Tarchitzky, J.; Rog, I.; Klein, T.; Cohen, S.

Declining performance of avocado orchards growing in a clayey soil irrigated with treated wastewater (TWW) for more than 5 years has been observed in Israel. Measures studied to mitigate this were freshwater (FW), blended TWW:FW in a 1:1 ratio (MIX), low-frequency TWW-irrigation (LFI), TWW irrigated tuff trenches (TUF) and TWW as the control treatment. This study reports on the response of avocado leaf gas exchange, intrinsic water use efficiency, leaf water potential and leaf hydraulic conductance

Read full article

2007 California

Salinity and water effects on 'Hass' avocado yields

Authors: Oster, J.; Stottlmyer, D.E.; Arpaia, M.L.

A field experiment was conducted between 1992 and 1997 in a commercial orchard of mature 'Hass' avocados on Mexican seedling rootstock (Persea antericana Mill.) to determine how yield was influenced by the amount of irrigation water applied and the frequency of application. Three amounts of water (targeted at 90%, 110%, and 130% of estimated crop evapotranspiration) were applied at three frequencies (one, twice, and seven times per week) with microsprinklers located beneath the tree canopy. The site was set up as a randomized complete block design with six blocks, each including one replicate of all irrigation treatments. One or two trees located at the center of the replicates were used to measure yields and tree size, and as the locations where samples of soil and soil water were obtained for analysis from beneath the tree canopy. The average electrical conductivity and chloride concentration of the irrigation water, corrected for rain, were 0.7 dS(.)m(-1) and 1.8 mmol(.)L(-1), respectively. From May 1994 to Nov. 1996, salinity of the saturated-paste extracts of soil samples obtained in the 0- to 120-cm depth interval averaged approximate to 2 dS(.)m(-1) for all irrigation treatments. Irrigation treatments also had little influence on the maximum soil-water salinity, approximate to 4 dS(.)m(-1), in and below the lower portion of the root zone. Consequently, irrigation treatments had little influence on the fraction of applied water that was not used by the crop, the leaching fraction. Chloride concentrations in leaves were affected by applied water but did not attain levels that are associated with leaf injury. Trees irrigated seven times per week had lower yields than trees that received less frequent irrigation. During the last 2 years of the experiment, when yields no longer increased with time, the yields for treatments irrigated once and twice per week increased with increasing amounts of applied water. We were able to explain the influence of both amount of applied water and soil salinity on avocado yields and leaching fraction using production function concepts. Yields increased with increasing amounts of applied water because of increased water availability for crop use before a soil-water salinity, of approximate to 4 dS(.)m(-1) restricted water uptake. The threshold salinity above which yield decline occurred was determined to be 0.57 dS(.)m(-1) and yield declined by 65% per unit of salinity above the threshold. Our results suggest that maximum yields of 'Hass' avocado on Mexican seedling rootstock are not achievable when the average annual salinity, of irrigation water, including rainfall, is greater than approximate to 0.6 dS(.)m(-1).

Read full article