Setting Irrigation Thresholds for Building a Platform Aimed at the Improved Management of Citrus Orchards in Coastal Syria

Citrus is one of the most valuable crops in Syria, with the largest production areas being in the coastal provinces of Tartus and Latakia, where this study was performed. A companion paper reported on the basal crop coefficients derived from the field water balance and on the performance assessment of various irrigation methods used in a citrus orchard located in the same region. That study evidenced the need for the improved management of irrigation water, mainly reducing water applications and increasing productivity, thus leading to the current research. The main objectives consisted of (i) providing a set of reliable basal (K-cb) and average (K-c) crop coefficients to be used in practice in the citrus orchards of the Syrian coastal area, while accounting for the diversity of characteristics observed; (ii) to estimate the seasonal consumptive use of typical orchards under different climate-demand and deficit-irrigation scenarios; and (iii) to assess possible water savings and related yield reductions. The previously calibrated water balance model SIMDualKc was used for these purposes. The computed K-cb values for the mid-season and average demand for water ranged from 0.52, when the plant density was low, to 0.84, when plant density was very high. The corresponding K-c values, which further reflected the impact of drip irrigation on controlling soil evaporation, were 0.72 and 0.97, respectively. Overall, the consumptive use of water was estimated to range from 867 to 1573 mm. The assessed water-saving scenarios consisted of adopting increased management-allowed depletion (MAD) thresholds relative to the p depletion fraction for no stress: MAD = 1.05, 1.10, 1.20, and 1.30 p. For trees under a very high climatic demand, water savings ranged from 12 to 34%, but the yield losses induced by the water deficits ranged from 8 to 48%. Although the selection of optimal strategies should be based upon economic terms, these may only be used when the Syrian economy recovers from civil war and the current crisis. The present results show the feasibility of adopting such MAD thresholds for building an irrigation management platform. The data provided by the current study are valuable because they can be efficiently used to support of the irrigation management of Syrian citrus production systems.