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Effects of water deficits on growth, yield and water productivity of drip-irrigated onion (Allium cepa L.) in an arid region of Northwest China

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Abstract

Aiming at investigating an appropriate irrigation management strategy that could lead to increase onions yields and improve water productivity (WP), a two-year field experiment was conducted in the arid region of Northwest China with drip irrigation and plastic mulch. Eight treatments were considered: four with different levels of water stress throughout the crop season, and four where water stress was applied at the establishment, development, bulbification and ripening stages. The seasonal actual evapotranspiration (ETa), plant height, above-ground biomass, yield (total, high-quality and marketable quality yields) as well as related irrigation and total water productivity were determined. Plant heights, above-ground biomass and the referred yields have shown to be sensitive to water stress, particularly during the development and bulbification stages. Due to the importance of quality of horticultural products, the WP computed with the yields of high-quality bulbs revealed the most informative contrarily to the WP computed with the total yields. It could be concluded that water stress has to be avoided during the development and bulbification stages, and only small deficits are acceptable if applied throughout the crop season.

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Acknowledgments

This research was jointly supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (grant numbers: 51125036, 91125017), the China-Israel Joint Research Program (grant number: CIJRP 2010006), the 12th Five-year Research Program of Ministry of Science and Technology of China (grant number: 2011BAD25B05), and the Program of Beijing Key Subject of Hydrology and Water Resources. Authors acknowledge the bilateral Sino-Portuguese collaborative project funded by the Ministries of Science and Technology of both countries.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Center for Agricultural Water Research, China Agricultural University, Beijing, 100083, People’s Republic of China

    Jianhua Zheng, Guanhua Huang, Jun Wang, Quanzhong Huang, Xu Xu & Haijun Liu

  2. Chinese-Israeli International Center for Research and Training in Agriculture, China Agricultural University, Beijing, 100083, People’s Republic of China

    Jianhua Zheng, Guanhua Huang, Jun Wang, Quanzhong Huang & Xu Xu

  3. CEER—Biosystems Engineering, Institute of Agronomy, Technical University of Lisbon, Tapada da Ajuda, 1349-017, Lisbon, Portugal

    Luis S. Pereira

  4. College of Water Science, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, 100875, People’s Republic of China

    Haijun Liu

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  1. Jianhua Zheng
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  2. Guanhua Huang
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Correspondence to Guanhua Huang.

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Communicated by S. Azam-Ali.

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Zheng, J., Huang, G., Wang, J. et al. Effects of water deficits on growth, yield and water productivity of drip-irrigated onion (Allium cepa L.) in an arid region of Northwest China. Irrig Sci 31, 995–1008 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00271-012-0378-5

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