The episode premiered on Thursday night on Smartcherry TV, titled “Irrigation: the productive black box,” generated great anticipation within the cherry industry. The chapter addressed, from various perspectives, irrigation and its relevance in cherry production.
“A good irrigation strategy, good irrigation scheduling, are super relevant in cherry cultivation, obviously not only in the cultivation of this species, but in all agricultural crops, in all fruit species (…) irrigation is an important part of the integral analysis of the success or failure of a production. Considering that today all fertigation systems depend on a good irrigation strategy to be effective and efficient and for all nutrients to be better utilized by the root system, obviously, the plant distributing them to the organs with the highest demand, so irrigation is integrally linked to all physiological processes of an orchard,” said Carlos Tapia, cherry production specialist advisor, and Technical Director of Avium.
The segment addressed irrigation at different stages of the orchard, with particular relevance to the end of the season.
“Generally, we should carry out our irrigations until the last days of March, except for some soils that are a little lighter, which have a little more presence of stones, which we should extend until the first weeks of April,” detailed Diego Humeres, from the Department of Irrigation and Climate of Avium.
This is done to signal to the plant to initiate the lignification process of wood and fruit centers and to better withstand the winter cold.
“That management of stopping watering is directly related to entering dormancy, it is one of the important signals for the plant to understand, based on less water replenishment, that it has to acclimate and generate signals through that route so that its leaf fall begins naturally,” added Tapia.
The work also looked at the use of technology in irrigation and how cherry production has gradually embraced precision irrigation; additionally, through the Irrigation and Drainage Trade Association, Agryd, and the National Irrigation Commission, CNR, the issue of water infrastructure, the Irrigation Law, among other topics, was addressed.
The chapter, sponsored by Aquadetect, AG Business, and GreenNetwork, is available on the Smartcherry TV YouTube channel.
