Water consumption and drip irrigation regimes of seedlings of fruit and berry crops in the central Non-Chernozem region

Current tasks in the production of seedlings of fruit and berry crops include improving technologies for growing planting material, including the use of irrigation. Currently, in world practice, the preference is given to environmentally friendly irrigation technologies, which include drip irrigation. The purpose of the research is to develop a scientifically based irrigation regime for drip watering of seedlings of fruit (plum, cherry, pear and apple) and berry (raspberry) crops in the conditions of the Central region of the non-Chernozem zone of the Central Russia. Research to substantiate drip irrigation regimes and study the water consumption of seedlings was carried out in the Michurinsky Garden of the Russian State Agrarian University – Moscow Timiryazev Agricultural Academy from 2011 to 2022. Field experiments on growing one-year-old, two-year-old and three-year-old seedlings were carried out in triplicate according to the following options: 1) control (without irrigation), 2) maintaining the moisture content of the root layer in the range of 60…80 % of the lowest moisture capacity, 3) 70…90 % of the lowest moisture capacity, and 4) 80…100 % of the lowest moisture capacity. The developed drip irrigation regimes for seedlings of fruit and berry crops make it possible to reduce the inter-irrigation period to an average of 2…9 days with low watering rates (on average 35.3…49.5 m³ per ha) depending on the pre-irrigation threshold (60, 70 and 80 % of the lowest moisture capacity) and moisture content of the growing season, and also ensure maintenance of the moisture content of the root layer of soil in specified ranges. When drip irrigation of seedlings, the main share in the total water consumption comes from moisture from precipitation (64 %) and irrigation rate (24 %).