Regulated deficit irrigation: an effective way to solve the shortage of agricultural water for horticulture

Abstract

The deficient agricultural water caused by water shortage is a crucial limiting factor of horticultural production. Among many agricultural water-saving technologies, regulated deficit irrigation (RDI) has been proven to be one of the effective technologies to improve water use efficiency and reduce water waste on the premise of maintaining the quality of agricultural products. RDI was first reported more than 40 years ago, although it has been applied in some areas, little is known about understanding of the implementation method, scope of application and detailed mechanism of RDI, resulting in the failure to achieve the effect that RDI should have. This review refers to the research on RDI in different crops published in recent years, summarizes the definition, equipment condition, function, theory illumination, plant response and application in different crops of RDI, and looks forward to its prospect. We expect that this review will provide valuable guidance for researchers and producers concerned, and support the promotion of RDI in more horticultural crops.

Effect of Regulated Deficit Irrigation (RDI) on the Growth and Development of Pear Fruit (Pyrus communis L.), var. Triunfo de Viena

“…This could be due to the fact that the water deficit was not severe, and the fruits grew due to the reserve carbohydrates stored in the stems and roots and were able to accumulate dry matter during periods of stress, as reported for pear [34] and for clementine by de Nules [35]. According to the theory of root-shoot balance, fruit trees under water stress transfer more nutrients to reproductive growth processes, and thus RDI can have a low negative effect on crop growth, especially on fruits, by saving water [5]. Taking into account these theories, we suggest that the 'Triunfo de Viena' pear not only possesses sufficient adaptive reserves but also a good ecological plasticity against hydric stress conditions in tropical highlands.…”

“…Regulated deficit irrigation (RDI) has been widely applied to fruit trees, such as grape, citrus, pear, apple, peach, cherry, blueberry and mango, as well as to melon [5]. In the RDI methodology, water stress is induced in the tree by irrigating less than the crop evapotranspiration (ETc) under standard conditions in certain phases of fruit development [6].…”

Partial root-zone drying combined with nitrogen treatments mitigates drought responses in rice

“…Most of these techniques are expensive, time-consuming, or require specific machinery ( Iqbal et al., 2020 ). Regulated deficit irrigation is an optimization strategy that requires the crop to consciously tolerate a certain level of water deficit, sometimes resulting in decreased yield and significantly increased water use efficiency (WUE) ( Yang et al., 2022 ; Zou and Kang, 2022 ). Partial root-zone drying (PRD) is a modified version of deficit irrigation and has been used to improve WUE by controlling drought ( Jovanovic and Stikic, 2018 ).…”

Integrating soil mulching and subsurface irrigation for optimizing deficit irrigation effectiveness as a water-rationing strategy in tomato production

“…The subsurface drip irrigation approach (SSI) is becoming more common among agronomists since it enables the crop to be "spoon-fed" for water and nutrients, which are added directly to the plant's root zone (Wang et al, 2022;Yang et al, 2022). The SSI technique also greatly improves water use efficiency by reducing water waste from runoff, deep percolation, wind drift, and soil evaporation (Camp et al, 2000;Mati, 2011;Sheta and Fayed, 2021;Abdelbaset et al, 2023).…”