Desempenho do morangueiro submetido a diferentes estratégias de manejo de irrigação no sistema semi-hidropônico

Abstract

The strawberry is a crop of great economic importance, mainly in the south of the state of Minas Gerais. But its cultivation comes accompanied by the use of many agricultural pesticides, being a crop very affected by pests and diseases. In this sense the cultivation of the strawberry semi-hydroponic system emerged as an alternative. With the objective of evaluating the leaching fraction and the combination of conventional water use and nutrient solution that will provide better performance in semi-hydroponic system production, the present work was developed. The cultivar chosen was San Andreas and submitted to different leaching fractions, 10% more than the culture evapotranspirated volume, 20%, 30% and 50%, with five replicates per treatment. The second experiment had as treatments the variation in the percentage of nutrient solution application, together with that of conventional water, and the leaching fraction was maintained at 20%. They are: (T1) 100% nutri ent solution; (T2) 80% nutrient solution + 20% water; (T3) 70% nutrient solution + 30% pure water; (T4) 50% nutrient solution + 50% pure water; (T5) 30% nutrient solution + 70% pure water, totaling five treatments with five replicates. The evaluated variables were fruit diameter and length, mean fruit mass, yield per plant and number of commercial fruits, as well as water productivity. The electrical conductivity and the pH of the drained solution collected after the irrigations were measured weekly. The physical characteristics were not influenced by the different leaching fractions, but by the different proportions of nutrient solution and conventional water. Treatments that received 30% leaching fraction produced more reaching 360.3 g plant -1 . The lower percentage of nutrient solution guarantees higher fruit size and higher average fruit mass. However, water productivity was not influenced by any of the treatments.