Fruit yield and quality responses of apple cvars Gala and Fuji to partial rootzone drying under Mediterranean conditions

SUMMARYIncreasing irrigation efficiency is a major goal for fruit production in dry Mediterranean environments. The present study was conducted in three consecutive years (2007–09) under typical Mediterranean conditions and tested the effect of partial rootzone drying (PRD) on yield and fruit quality of two apple cultivars: Gala, with fruit maturing in summer and Fuji, with fruit maturing in autumn. Three irrigation treatments were imposed: conventional irrigation (CI), PRD (0·50 of CI water on one side of the rootzone, which was alternated periodically) and continuous deficit irrigation (DI, 0·50 of CI water on both sides of the rootzone). During the 2008 and 2009 irrigation seasons, DI re…