Tag: Water Use
Losing Aguacate: What If Water Costs Kill Avocado Farming in San Diego County?
San Diego County is categorized as urban, yet it was one of only three counties in the United States with over 5,000 farm operations in 2017. While continuing to expand its urban area, the county lost farmland at the rate of 3.8% every year between 2002 and 2017. By several measures, avocado production is the county's most important crop, and avocado groves account for about 30% of all crops planted there. Avocado acreage is also declining rapidly in the county, at about 3% each year. To understand
Blue and Green Water Footprint of Agro-Industrial Avocado Production in Central Mexico
Mexico is the world-leading avocado producer. The municipality of Uruapan in the Avocado Belt region in Central Mexico produces 153,000 tons a year, nearly 6.4% of Mexico’s total volume. We performed a green and blue water footprint (WF) analysis between 2012 to 2017 in this municipality, and compared the estimated WF volumes with water concessions for agriculture. Mean annual rainfall was 1757.0 mm in the study period, mean effective rainfall 877.2 mm, mean crop evapotranspiration 933.1 mm, and
Crop Yield Response to Water: Section 4.1 (Fruit Trees)
Avocado (Persea americana Mill) is a tree that has been known for centuries in areas of Central and South America, but only recently has become a commercial crop. In 2009, there were over 430 000 ha of commercial plantings with a world average yield of 8.8 tonne/ha, with Mexico (100 000 ha), Chile and the United States as the main producing countries. Other countries with significant exports are South Africa, Spain, and Israel (FAO, 2011). Figure 1 presents the production trends of the main producing
Avocado cv. Hass Needs Water Irrigation in Tropical Precipitation Regime: Evidence from Colombia
The primary natural source of water for the Hass avocado crop in the tropics is precipitation. However, this is insufficient to provide most crops’ water requirements due to the spatial and temporal variability. This study aims to demonstrate that Hass avocado requires irrigation in Colombia, and this is done by analyzing the dynamics of local precipitation regimes and the influence of Intertropical Convergence Zone phenomena (ITCZ) on the irrigation requirement (IR). This study was carried out
Bioenergetics, respiration cost and water relations of developing avocado fruit
Avocado fruit of cultivars with different susceptibility to physiological fruit disorders were examined in situ for respiration, stomatal conductance, transpiration and xylem water potential. Therein, attached fruit of cv. Fuerte (susceptible to mesocarp discolouration) were compared with Hass (susceptible to small fruit) over the 3-month period from anthesis until the fruit reached 60 g fresh matter:1. Avocado fruit respired more CO2 in the dark than in the light due to fruit photosynthesis. Respiration
Global virtual water trade of avocado
This paper investigates the relationship between international trade of avocado and the related virtual water trade over the period 2000–2016. Using a Physical Trade Analysis, we show that commercial and virtual water trade grew rapidly moving almost hand-in-hand in the years taken into account: in parallel with a remarkable increase of international trade of avocado from 0.4 Mt in 2000 to 1.9 Mt in 2016, the global virtual water trade of avocado increased from 408 Mm³ to 2238 Mm³ over the same