The effects of periodic water stress and basal fertilizer doses on yield and growth of ferragnes and ferraduel almond cultivars grown in Malatya conditions

Together with drought caused by global warming, the decrease in precipitation and changes in its distribution bring along the necessity of using the existing water resources in the most efficient way possible. In addition, it is important to optimize the chemical fertilizers under the conditions of our country used in almond growing which has been increasing in recent years. In this study, the effects of a deficit irrigation method applied by skipping irrigation periods and three different basal fertilizer doses on almond cultivation were investigated. The study was carried out in Malatya Turgut Özal University, Faculty of Agriculture, Research and Application Orchard in 2018 and 2019. In the study, almond trees belonging to Ferragnes and Ferraduel cultivars planted in 5×5 m distance in 2012 were used as plant material. As part of the deficit irrigation applications, in addition to the control application in which all 6 irrigations were made during the cultivation period, five different deficit irrigation applications applied as skipping first, second, third, fourth and fifth irrigations, respectively. Within the scope of the fertilization applications, 2, 4 and 8 kg tree-1 of a composite fertilizer containing 15% Nitrogen, 15% Phosphorus, 15% Potassium and 15% Sulfur were applied. In order to determine the influences of the applications, some physical fruit quality characteristics were measured, as well as the shelled and unshelled yield values per tree, and the enlargement values of the stem and main branch diameter were recorded. As a result of the irrigation applications, the highest shelled and unshelled fruit yield per tree values were obtained from the second application with 15.3 and 5.1 kg tree-1, respectively, followed by the application without control and fifth irrigation, respectively. In fertilization applications, the highest yield of shelled and unshelled fruit per tree was obtained from 4 kg composite fertilizer application with 14.9 and 4.8 kg tree-1, respectively. In the Ferraduel cultivar, no statistically significant difference was found between the applications in terms of yield values. As a result of the study, it was observed that water savings can be made in almond cultivation without causing a significant loss of yield and fruit quality with deficit irrigation practices, especially in the second period, and that the 4 kg basal fertilizer dose in fertilization applications can be suitable for growing compared to other applications. Keywords: Almond, deficit irrigation, fruit quality, basal fertilizer, yield