ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Hortic.
Sec. Viticulture, Pomology, and Soft Fruits
Volume 4 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fhort.2025.1552283
This article is part of the Research TopicCitriculture: Sustaining Quality ProductionView all 4 articles
Agronomic response of Subsurface versus Surface Drip Irrigation in Nagpur mandarin (Citrus reticulata Blanco) on Indian Vertisol
Provisionally accepted
Deodas Tarachand Meshram*
Anoop Kumar Srivastava*
A Thirugnanavel
Naresh M Meshram
Prasanth Tej Kumar Jagannadham
Akshay D Utkhede
Chetan S Pangul- Central Citrus Research Institute (ICAR), Nagpur, India
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Citrus is considered a highly water and nutrient sapping crop, with several previous efforts focusing on improving water productivity (WP) and nutrient-use-efficiency (NUE). However, such efforts highlighting the performance of subsurface drip irrigation (SDI) versus drip irrigation (DI) in black clay soil (Vertisol) growing Nagpur mandarin are very limited . This study evaluated six treatments: T 1 (SDI with double inline laterals at 100 cm radially from trunk and 30 cm vertically placed into the soil , drippers spaced 30 cm apart), T 2 (SDI with double inline laterals at 100 cm radially from trunk and 30 cm vertically placed into the soil , drippers spaced 40 cm apart), T 3 (SDI with double inline laterals at 100 cm radially from trunk and 30 cm vertically placed into the soil , drippers spaced 50 cm apart ), T 4 (SDI with double inline laterals at 100 cm radially from trunk and 30 cm vertically placed into the soil , drippers spaced 60 cm apart), T 5 (DI with double online laterals at 100 cm from trunk with 6 drippers 60 cm apart , control as farmers practice ), and T 6 (DI with ring type online laterals at 10cm from trunk with 12 drippers tree -1 placed 60 cm apart). These treatments were evaluated studied for their response on growth performance, fruit yield, fruit quality, WP, and leaf nutrients composition . Significantly higher WP and lower water requirement were observed with SDI (7.96-10.73 kg m -³ and 13260 L plant -1 year -1 ) compared to DI treatments (2.79-3.04 kg m -³ and 32670 L plant -1 year -1 ). These observations were associated with 25.29 % higher fruit yield with SDI treatments over DI treatments. Similarly, fruit quality parameters viz., juice content and total soluble solids (TSS) showed 6.65 % and 1.17% 0 Brix , respectively, higher with SDI than DI treatments. Consequently, SDI treatments registered leaf N, P, K,
Keywords: agronomic efficiency, Crop coefficient, fruit yield, fruit quality, Nagpur mandarin, Subsurface drip irrigation, Surface drip irrigation, Nutrient content
Received: 23 Jan 2025; Accepted: 04 Aug 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Meshram, Srivastava, Thirugnanavel, Meshram, Jagannadham, Utkhede and Pangul. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence:
Deodas Tarachand Meshram, Central Citrus Research Institute (ICAR), Nagpur, India
Anoop Kumar Srivastava, Central Citrus Research Institute (ICAR), Nagpur, India
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