Citrus irrigation recommendations

Helen Newman, Development Officer, South Perth

Irrigation is one of the most important factors in producing a good yield of quality citrus. Irrigation scheduling, knowing how much water to put on and when, has a direct impact on tree health as well as fruit yield, size and quality. Without correct irrigation scheduling your orchard is more susceptible to nutrient deficiencies, physiological disorders, pests and disease.

Correct irrigation scheduling requires an understanding of how much water:

can be held in the crop root zone is required by the crop each day is applied by the irrigation system.

Shallow root system

Citrus trees have shallow root systems. If you dig a hole under the canopy of your tree in an area watered by your irrigation system, you will see a mass of fine roots. Dig a little deeper and these fine roots are replaced by larger structural roots. It is the mass of fine roots, known as the effective root zone, that takes up the majority of water and nutrients used by the tree.

It is important to aim irrigation at the effective root zone, minimising the amount of water that leaches past and is wasted. For citrus, the effective root zone is usually the top 30 to 40 cm, depending on the soil type (see Figure 1).

Figure 2 Example of water-holding capacity

Root zone capacity

The amount of water that can be held in the root zone varies with the type of irrigation system used, soil type, depth of the effective root zone, and proportion of stone or gravel in the soil. Farmnote 543 Calculating Readily Available Water explains the steps involved in calculating how much water can be held in the effective root zone.

Figure 2 shows two trees of the same size (9 square metre canopy area), growing in a hedge row in a loam soil. The root zone depth of both trees is 30 cm. One tree is irrigated with two drippers, the other with a fully overlapping micro-sprinkler system. The soil within the wetted root zone of the tree with the two drippers can hold 34 litres of Readily Available Water, which is much less than the comparable sprinkler-irrigated tree where the root zone can hold 189 litres.

Figure 3 Measuring canopy size

Daily water requirements

There is good correlation between plant water requirements and evaporation. Citrus trees use about 70 per cent of evaporation. If evaporation is 10 mm, the trees will use 7 mm of water from the soil root zone volume.

Daily water use (mm) = Evaporation (mm) x 0.7

A sprinkler system that irrigates the under-canopy area evenly with a known application rate in millimetres can be used to schedule irrigations by replacing water used as described above. For drip irrigation systems, where only a portion of the under-canopy area is watered, it is best to calculate daily water requirements in litres.

Converting water use from mm to litres

To convert millimetres of water use to litres, multiply daily water use in millimetres by the canopy area at ground level.

Daily water use (L) = Evaporation (mm) x 0.7 x Canopy ground area (m2)

Water use is proportional to the area of exposed leaf, which relates to the area of land covered by the canopy. Calculate canopy ground area in square metres by measuring the horizontal dimensions. If the trees are growing in a hedge and canopy areas are touching, multiply the tree spacing by the average canopy width along the row. If the canopies do not touch, work out the area as a circle.

Tables 1 and 2 show the average daily irrigation requirements of citrus trees in litres for different canopy sizes at Wokalup and the Upper Swan. Note that figures have been rounded. Average evaporation rates were taken from the Bureau of Meteorology website. Table 1 Average daily water requirements in litres per tree per dayWokalup

Table 2 Average daily water requirements in litres per tree per dayUpper Swan

Imperial mandarins
Varieties with narrow upright growth habits such as Imperial mandarins will require slightly more water than that calculated according to canopy ground area. Use the calculations described as a base and fine-tune the schedule using soil moisture monitoring devices.

Scheduling irrigations
To schedule irrigation, compare the amount of water available in the crop root zone with the tree's daily water requirement. If the daily water requirement exceeds the amount of water that can be held in the root zone, you will need to irrigate more than once a day. If the soil can hold more than the daily water requirement there is an option of irrigating when the available water is depleted which may be every second or third day, daily or several times a day.

Scheduling example
Using the example in Figure 2, on an average day in January in the Upper Swan area these trees would require 62.5 litres of water per day. The drip-irrigated tree would require two irrigations, one in the morning and one partway through the day. The sprinkler-irrigated tree would require irrigating every third day.

Rainfall
Rainfall during the irrigation season may reduce the water requirement of your trees. Rainfall events greater than 5 mm should be factored ISSN 0726-934X Copyright Western Australian Agriculture Authority, 2012 Copies of this document are available in alternative formats upon request. 3 Baron-Hay Court South Perth WA 6151 Tel: (08) 9368 3333 Email: enquiries@agric.wa.gov.au Website:www.agric.wa.gov.au 20123131-07/12-ID10641 into your irrigation schedule. Note that not all rain that falls is available to be taken up by your trees; some is lost to run-off, drainage below the root zone, or interception by leaf litter or mulch. If rain exceeds the amount of water that can be held in the root zone, in your irrigation schedule only consider the amount of water that can be held in the soil; the remainder will be lost to drainage. Keep a close eye on soil moisture during dry winters and in spring as the soil can dry out quickly if there is insufficient rainfall or irrigation.

Soil moisture monitoring

It is best practice to use a combination of evaporation replacement and soil moisture monitoring when scheduling irrigation. Monitoring tools give a picture of what is happening in and below the crop root zone, allowing for more informed irrigation scheduling decisions. Many different devices are available so be sure to match your chosen tool's capabilities with your requirements.

Irrigation pointers

Where drip irrigation is used, you may need to irrigate more than once a day to meet peak water requirements. If the drip system drains out after each irrigation, break the irrigation down into the longest pulses possible to reduce losses to drainage.

Redesign the irrigation system if the wetted area is too small (limiting) and pulsing is not an option. To perform pulse irrigation efficiently, a non-draining drip system is required. Sprinkler irrigation systems cannot be used for pulse irrigation. Short pulses do not penetrate deep enough into the soil resulting in high evaporative losses. Check the uniformity of the irrigation system at the beginning and throughout the irrigation season.

Further reading

Farmnote 543 Calculating Readily Available Water Farmnote 508 Determining soil texture types Farmnote 542 Converting Readily Available Water to litres for drip irrigation Farmnote 35/1990 Evaluating sprinkler and trickle irrigation systems Farmnote 26/1990 Soil moisture monitoring equipment Average monthly evaporation figures can be found on the Bureau of Meteorology website at www.bom.gov.au.