干旱区生态环境知识资源中心

The successful cultivation of citrus tinder the semi-arid conditions of the Mediterranean area depends upon the adequate supply of good quality water for summer irrigation. Under limited water availability, the adoption of appropriate irrigation scheduling practices could reduce yield losses and avoid death of trees and loss of capital investments. With this purpose, the irrigation scheduling simulation model ISAREG has been validated with data collected in citrus experimental plots located in the Catania plain irrigation district. Then, different deficit irrigation strategies have been simulated aiming at selecting those that minimise the water demand with smaller impacts on yields. Simulations were performed for different levels of climatic demand: average, high and very high. The impacts due to the existing farm reservoirs have been considered. Results show the usefulness of simulation models to identify and evaluate strategies for deficit irrigation, and made evident the importance of farm reservoirs to allow farmers to adopt the more appropriate irrigation schedules under water scarcity.