Irrigação do meloeiro cultivado em ambiente protegido

Abstract

In this paper, four studies are presented, with the following objectives: i) to evaluate the production and quality of melon “Gália” type, grown in greenhouse, when submitted to different levels of soil water tension, during the vegetative and reproductive phases and during the entire cycle. ii) to evaluate the productive characteristics of melon, grown in greenhouse, varying the applied irrigation water depth and soil cover. iii) to evaluate melon’s productive characteristics, varying irrigation water depths and the number of fruits per plant. iv) to evaluate, technically and economically the melon irrigated grown in protected environment. On study i, three experiments were carried out, using a completely randomized design, involving, as treatments, four soil water tensions of 15, 30, 60 and 120 kPa with four replications. Was used a drip irrigation system and the monitoring of soil water tension was done using tensiometers and granular matrix sensors. Studies ii, iii and iv were conducted simultaneously, in protected environment, using a completely randomized design, where plants have been submitted to five levels of soil water replacement depths (50, 75, 100, 125 and 150%), with four replications. In ii, the use or not of plastic mulching was tested; in iii, the amount of fruits per plant varied, 2 or 4 fruits; while, in iv, the technical and economic analysis of melon grown in protected environment was made, with or without soil cover. On study i, results showed significant differences to yield and fruits length, and the other variables, as total soluble solids, fruits firmness were not found significant statically differences. In general, higher yields were obtained with soil water tension of 15 kPa. For study ii, the variables yield, average weight, length and fruits diameter were affected by the different levels of water replacement in the soil independently of the use of soil cover or not. Higher yields, of 44.51 and 50.86 t. ha-1, were obtained with irrigation water depths of 186.9 and 208.9 mm, on experiments with mulching and without it, respectively. On study iii, the yield was affected by the different levels of water reposition on soil at experiments with two and four fruits. Higher physical yields, 50.86 and 57.59 t ha-1, were obtained with irrigation water depths of 208.92 e 222.72 mm, in experiments with two and four fruits per plant, respectively. The variables weight, length and average fruit diameter were affected by treatments only at the experiment with two fruits per plant. To study iv, the variable yield was affect independently of the use or not of soil cover. The economic irrigation water depths were estimated as 208.83 and 186.78 mm for experiments I (with mulching) and II (without mulching), respectively.