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Water Management in Woody Crops: Challenges and Opportunities
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Water Management in Woody Crops: Challenges and Opportunities

A special issue of Water (ISSN 2073-4441). This special issue belongs to the section "Water Resources Management, Policy and Governance".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (31 March 2022) | Viewed by 22677

Special Issue Editors

Dr. José Manuel Mirás-Avalos

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Centro de Investigación y Tecnología Agroalimentaria de Aragón (CITA), Unidad de Suelos y Riegos (asociada a EEAD-CSIC), Av. Montañana, Zaragoza, Spain
Interests: irrigation; crop modeling; sustainable agriculture; plant ecophysiology; soil management and quality; viticulture; fruit trees; crop water requirements; biodiversity; ecology
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Dr. Juan Miguel Ramírez-Cuesta

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Centro de Edafología y Biología Aplicada del Segura (CEBAS), Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (CSIC), Espinardo, 30100 Murcia, Spain
Interests: remote sensing; evapotranspiration; precision agriculture; modeling; surface energy balance; soil water balance; geographic information systems; irrigation management; crop water stress; crop coefficient
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Water conservation is paramount for the long-term sustainability of agroecosystems, especially in arid and semi-arid regions. In the case of woody crops, it is a serious concern due to the large extension of these crops in different climatic conditions and the high inputs required for growing them. Indeed, the optimization of water management is critical for agricultural sustainability, especially under actual climate change scenarios (higher air temperatures, more severe drought and heat waves), since crop yield, quality, and economic viability largely depend on water availability.

This Special Issue aims at collecting original and quantitative research on water management in woody crops (i.e., fruit orchards, olive groves, vineyards, citrus, berries, forest stands, shrubs, etc.) including:

  • Research on irrigation management strategies aiming to save water while maintaining yield and crop quality; especially when employing alternative water sources (as saline or reclaimed water);
  • Studies of other cultural practices that allow for saving water in orchards (mulching, cover crops, canopy management, cultivar and rootstock selection, etc.);
  • Studies focused on the effects of climate change on water availability for woody crops, either in the field or under controlled conditions;
  • Works using novel techniques for estimating crop water requirements at different application scales (plant, orchard, watershed), through remote sensing technologies, especially those covering the optical, infrared, and radar regions of the electromagnetic spectrum.

Therefore, the proposed topic can be considered from many viewpoints and we encourage authors working on crop modeling and upscaling to submit their manuscripts for consideration.

Dr. José Manuel Mirás-Avalos
Dr. Juan Miguel Ramírez-Cuesta
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Water is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • alternative water sources
  • climate change
  • crop modeling
  • crop water requirements
  • cultural practices
  • deficit irrigation strategies
  • evapotranspiration
  • irrigation management
  • precision agriculture
  • remote sensing

Published Papers (6 papers)

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Editorial

Jump to: Research, Review

3 pages, 203 KiB  
Editorial
Water Management in Woody Crops: Challenges and Opportunities
by José Manuel Mirás-Avalos and Juan Miguel Ramírez-Cuesta
Water 2022, 14(13), 2043; https://doi.org/10.3390/w14132043 - 26 Jun 2022
Viewed by 1420
Abstract
Water is an essential resource for agriculture, accounting for 40–60% of total water consumption in Europe, mostly used for irrigation [...] Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Water Management in Woody Crops: Challenges and Opportunities)

Research

Jump to: Editorial, Review

26 pages, 6502 KiB  
Article
Monitoring Crop Evapotranspiration and Transpiration/Evaporation Partitioning in a Drip-Irrigated Young Almond Orchard Applying a Two-Source Surface Energy Balance Model
by Juan M. Sánchez, Llanos Simón, José González-Piqueras, Francisco Montoya and Ramón López-Urrea
Water 2021, 13(15), 2073; https://doi.org/10.3390/w13152073 - 29 Jul 2021
Cited by 15 | Viewed by 2446
Abstract
Encouraged by the necessity to better understand the water use in this woody crop, a study was carried out in a commercial drip-irrigated young almond orchard to quantify and monitor the crop evapotranspiration (ETc) and its partitioning into tree canopy transpiration [...] Read more.
Encouraged by the necessity to better understand the water use in this woody crop, a study was carried out in a commercial drip-irrigated young almond orchard to quantify and monitor the crop evapotranspiration (ETc) and its partitioning into tree canopy transpiration (T) and soil evaporation (E), to list and analyze single and dual crop coefficients, and to extract relationships between them and the vegetation fractional cover (fc) and remote-sensing-derived vegetation indices (VIs). A Simplified Two-Source Energy Balance (STSEB) model was applied, and the results were compared to ground measurements from a flux tower. This study comprises three consecutive growing seasons from 2017 to 2019, corresponding to Years 2 to 4 after planting. Uncertainties lower than 50 W m−2 were obtained for all terms of the energy balance equation on an instantaneous scale, with average estimation errors of 0.06 mm h−1 and 0.6 mm d−1, for hourly and daily ETc, respectively. Water use for our young almond orchard resulted in average mid-season crop coefficient (Kc mid) values of 0.30, 0.33, and 0.45 for the 2017, 2018, and 2019 growing seasons, corresponding to fc mean values of 0.21, 0.35, and 0.39, respectively. Average daily evapotranspiration for the same periods resulted in 1.7, 2.1, and 3.2 mm d−1. The results entail the possibility of predicting the water use of any age almond orchards by monitoring its biophysical parameters. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Water Management in Woody Crops: Challenges and Opportunities)
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12 pages, 1067 KiB  
Article
Effects of Drip Irrigation Design on a Lemon and a Young Persimmon Orchard in Semi-Arid Conditions
by Margarita Parra, David Hortelano, Francisco García-Sánchez, Diego S. Intrigliolo and José S. Rubio-Asensio
Water 2021, 13(13), 1795; https://doi.org/10.3390/w13131795 - 29 Jun 2021
Cited by 4 | Viewed by 2722
Abstract
Drip irrigation is presently widely recognized as the most efficient irrigation system that can be used in woody perennial crops. However, uncertainties exist on the more appropriate agronomic design to employ. Here, we summarized the research carried out for three seasons in two [...] Read more.
Drip irrigation is presently widely recognized as the most efficient irrigation system that can be used in woody perennial crops. However, uncertainties exist on the more appropriate agronomic design to employ. Here, we summarized the research carried out for three seasons in two young woody perennial crops (persimmon and lemon) in southeastern Spain. Several irrigation designs were compared by maintaining a similar amount of water application but varying the number of emitters and pipelines in each row in the orchard. In the lemon trial, the agronomic irrigation design was additionally combined with different irrigation regimes, comparing full irrigation (FI) with sustained deficit irrigation (SDI). In the persimmon trees, which were still at the juvenility stage, varying the number of emitters per tree or the number of drip lines per tree row, neither affects tree performance nor fruit yield in two out of the three seasons. However, over the entire experimental period, the relative trunk growth increased when more emitters were employed. In the lemon trial, carried out with trees that had reached commercial production, the FI, compared with SDI, increased trunk growth and average fruit weight, while a reduced number of fruits per tree without affecting total yield was observed in the third year of experimentation. The number of emitters per tree only had an effect the first year, increasing lemon fruit weight when the number of drippers per tree increased. In addition, fruit composition was not consistently affected by the irrigation design. It is concluded that, for a given irrigation dose, irrigation frequency, and soil conditions (loam-clay texture), in both very young and more mature trees, increasing the number of emitters or the wetted area only had some slight positive effects on tree performance. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Water Management in Woody Crops: Challenges and Opportunities)
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17 pages, 3337 KiB  
Article
Irrigation Protocols in Different Water Availability Scenarios for ‘Crimson Seedless’ Table Grapes under Mediterranean Semi-Arid Conditions
by Abdelmalek Temnani, María R. Conesa, Manuel Ruiz, Juan A. López, Pablo Berríos and Alejandro Pérez-Pastor
Water 2021, 13(1), 22; https://doi.org/10.3390/w13010022 - 25 Dec 2020
Cited by 13 | Viewed by 2708
Abstract
For three consecutive years (2015–2017), two deficit irrigation (DI) strategies were used in a 12-year old vineyard (cv. ‘Crimson Seedless’) to implement a sustainable irrigation protocol according to the available water for the farmer. Four different irrigation treatments were assessed: (i) Control (CTL), [...] Read more.
For three consecutive years (2015–2017), two deficit irrigation (DI) strategies were used in a 12-year old vineyard (cv. ‘Crimson Seedless’) to implement a sustainable irrigation protocol according to the available water for the farmer. Four different irrigation treatments were assessed: (i) Control (CTL), irrigated to satisfy the maximum crop water requirements throughout the entire growing season; two DI treatments irrigated as CTL except during post-veraison, when the vines were irrigated at 50% CTL: (ii) Regulated Deficit Irrigation (RDI); and (iii) Partial Root Drying (PRD), alternating the wet and dry sides of the root zone, and (iv) irrigated according to the criteria followed by the farmer (FARM), and conditioned by the availability of water each season. The DI strategies resulted in a 50% increase in water use efficiency in the first two years and 81% during the third year. Weekly deficit irrigation protocols are proposed, which specify a maximum difference of 0.22 MPa of midday stem water potential with respect to well-watered vines for a range of irrigation water availabilities between 4000 and 7000 m3 ha−1. An applied water prediction model based on the Gaussian regression using day of the year and maximum temperature of the day is also proposed. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Water Management in Woody Crops: Challenges and Opportunities)
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18 pages, 576 KiB  
Article
Deficit Irrigation as a Suitable Strategy to Enhance the Nutritional Composition of HydroSOS Almonds
by Saray Gutiérrez-Gordillo, Leontina Lipan, Víctor Hugo Durán Zuazo, Esther Sendra, Francisca Hernández, Martín Samuel Hernández-Zazueta, Ángel A. Carbonell-Barrachina and Iván Francisco García-Tejero
Water 2020, 12(12), 3336; https://doi.org/10.3390/w12123336 - 27 Nov 2020
Cited by 15 | Viewed by 2444
Abstract
The Mediterranean region is one of the most water-scarce areas worldwide and is considered a climate-change hotspot. To assure the viability and competitiveness of irrigated agriculture, it is vital to implement strategies that can maximize water saving without compromising yield. Deficit irrigation (DI) [...] Read more.
The Mediterranean region is one of the most water-scarce areas worldwide and is considered a climate-change hotspot. To assure the viability and competitiveness of irrigated agriculture, it is vital to implement strategies that can maximize water saving without compromising yield. Deficit irrigation (DI) for cultivating drought-tolerant species such as almond (Prunus dulcis (Mill.) D.A. Webb) can help in achieving this goal, while at the same time improving fruit chemical composition. This work evaluated the effect of DI techniques and cultivars on the chemical composition of almonds (cvs. Marta, Guara, and Lauranne) in order to elucidate the most suitable irrigation dose under water-scarcity scenarios. Three irrigation regimes were imposed: a control treatment (FI), which was fully irrigated, receiving 100% of the irrigation requirement (IR), and two sustained-deficit irrigation (SDI) strategies that received 75% (SDI75) and 65% (SDI65) of IR. Significant differences among cultivars and irrigation treatments were observed for antioxidant activity and organic acid, sugar, and fatty acid content, which were increased by the SDI strategies. In addition, highly significant correlations were found between leaf-water potential and components such as fumaric acid, sugars, and fatty acids. In terms of the cultivars, cv. Marta showed the highest antioxidant activity, cv. Guara was the richest in organic acids, and cv. Lauranne had the highest fatty acid content. Consequently, SDI strategies improved almond quality parameters related to their nutritional and sensory composition, with significant water savings (reductions of 25–35%) and without important yield loss. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Water Management in Woody Crops: Challenges and Opportunities)
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Review

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32 pages, 3654 KiB  
Review
Optimization of Vineyard Water Management: Challenges, Strategies, and Perspectives
by José Manuel Mirás-Avalos and Emily Silva Araujo
Water 2021, 13(6), 746; https://doi.org/10.3390/w13060746 - 10 Mar 2021
Cited by 50 | Viewed by 9866
Abstract
Water availability is endangering the production, quality, and economic viability of growing wine grapes worldwide. Climate change projections reveal warming and drying trends for the upcoming decades, constraining the sustainability of viticulture. In this context, a great research effort over the last years [...] Read more.
Water availability is endangering the production, quality, and economic viability of growing wine grapes worldwide. Climate change projections reveal warming and drying trends for the upcoming decades, constraining the sustainability of viticulture. In this context, a great research effort over the last years has been devoted to understanding the effects of water stress on grapevine performance. Moreover, irrigation scheduling and other management practices have been tested in order to alleviate the deleterious effects of water stress on wine production. The current manuscript provides a comprehensive overview of the advances in the research on optimizing water management in vineyards, including the use of novel technologies (modeling, remote sensing). In addition, methods for assessing vine water status are summarized. Moreover, the manuscript will focus on the interactions between grapevine water status and biotic stressors. Finally, future perspectives for research are provided. These include the performance of multifactorial studies accounting for the interrelations between water availability and other stressors, the development of a cost-effective and easy-to-use tool for assessing vine water status, and the study of less-known cultivars under different soil and climate conditions. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Water Management in Woody Crops: Challenges and Opportunities)
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