Pruning and Water Saving Management Effects on Mango High-Density and Mature Orchards

Abstract

Water is getting scarce and irrigation practices should become more efficient. Mango orchards require great quantities of water, and policies in developing countries are substituting surface gravity irrigation by pressurized systems. A commercial orchard having mature 25-year-old trees and a 10-year-old HD high-density section were irrigated with micro sprinklers using 100% ETc (crop evapotranspiration) and reduced deficit irrigation treatments of 75% and 50% ETc. Water soil measurements were made with EC-5 probes at 10 and 35 cm in depth to study the effect of the different irrigation treatments. After the 2020 harvest, mature trees were trimmed without achieving pruning severity greater than 1.3. Canopy volume, mango size, fruit yield and water-use efficiency WUE were analyzed during 2020 and 2021. Sporadic storms produced sprinkler watering problems as weeds proliferated within trees. A controller with a fuzzy algorithm optimized orchard management and saved water in trees without decreasing yield and fruit size. It was found that one year after mature trees were trimmed by taking away the larger internal branch, more light penetrated the canopy, increasing yield by 60%; pruning in HD trees presented a yield increase of 5.37%. WUE (water-use efficiency) also increased with pruning and its value increased to 87.6 when the fuzzy controller and the 50% DI treatments were used in mature trees. This value was 260% greater than the one obtained in pruned trees without the controller. HD trees presented a lower WUE and yield per hectare than mature trees.

Increasing Mango Production Efficiency under the Fast-Changing Climate

“…Rootstocks from polyembryonic are used to improve mango tree resistance to fruit fly occurrences and mango wilt disease [88,89]. Current research has designed mango fruit trap detection to monitor their population on the field and to establish an economic threshold for managing them [90]. Scientists are keen on improving the genetic base of mango cultivars to enhance their resistance to varied biotic stress (Table 2).…”

Water Demand and Water Use Efficiency in ‘Palmer’ Mango Cultivation in the Low-Middle São Francisco Valley

“…Therefore, irrigation can be managed more efficiently by developing strategies to reduce water application under similar conditions to the evaluated orchard, while maintaining or even increasing productivity, as highlighted by Simões et al (2021). This would reduce costs associated with irrigation and increase WUE (Hahn et al, 2022). CWP was 17.7 kg ha -1 mm -1 in cycle I and 32.1 kg ha -1 mm -1 in cycle II.…”

Inteligencia artificial en agricultura - Uso de algoritmos, drones y biosensores

“…Debido a esto, Hahn et al (2022) trabajó en un huerto comercial de mangos con árboles maduros de 25 años y una sección de alta densidad de 10 años se regaron con microaspersores usando 100% ETc y tratamientos de riego deficitario reducido de 75 y 50% ETc. Señalan que después de la cosecha de 2020, el volumen del dosel, el tamaño del mango, el rendimiento de fruta y la eficiencia del uso del agua se analizaron durante 2020 y 2021.…”