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Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Agricultural Water Management

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/agwat

Water use efciency is improved by alternate partial root-zone

irrigation of apple in arid northwest China
Shaoqing Du a , Shaozhong Kang a , Fusheng Li b , Taisheng Du a,
a
b

Center for Agricultural Water Research in China, China Agricultural University, Beijing 100083, China
College of Agriculture, Guangxi University, Nanning, Guangxi 530005, China

a r t i c l e

i n f o

Article history:
Received 13 January 2016
Received in revised form 6 May 2016
Accepted 9 May 2016
Available online xxx
Keywords:
Alternate partial root-zone irrigation
Apple tree
Evapotranspiration
Leaf area index
Yield
Water use efciency

a b s t r a c t
Apple is an important fruit tree in semiarid and arid areas, but increasing water scarcity limits apple
productivity. Earlier studies have reported that alternate partial root-zone irrigation (APRI) can increase
water use efciency (WUE), but the effects of APRI with different irrigation frequencies on fruit yield and
WUE are still unknown or contradictory. To close this knowledge gap, a two-year eld experiment was
conducted including two irrigation amounts (400 and 500 mm) and three irrigation methods (i.e. conventional irrigation with low frequency, APRI with low and high frequencies) in an apple orchard of the arid
region of northwest China. Soil water content, sap ow, soil evaporation, leaf area index (LAI), fruit yield
and components, and WUE on the basis of irrigation amount and tree evapotranspiration were evaluated.
Results showed that (1) compared with low irrigation amount, high irrigation amount improved apple
yield and signicantly increased tree evapotranspiration and LAI; (2) in comparison of conventional irrigation, APRI could increase apple yield signicantly and reduce tree evapotranspiration, so it enhanced
WUE; (3) compared with low frequency, APRI with high frequency could improve apple yield and WUE.
Our results demonstrated that alternate partial root-zone irrigation with high irrigation frequency has
the potential to increase fruit yield and water use efciency on the basis of tree evapotranspiration in
arid northwest China.
2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction
Apple is an important fruit tree in semiarid and arid areas of
northwest China (Zhang et al., 2013), but conventional ood irrigation results in low water productivity (Kang et al., 2003a). To
overcome the shortage of water resources in apple production, lots
of water-saving techniques have been proposed worldwide, such as
drip irrigation (Yang et al., 2013; Parvizi et al., 2014; Neilsen et al.,
2015), decit border irrigation (Laribi et al., 2013; Shan et al., 2013;
Faci et al., 2014) and alternate partial root-zone irrigation (APRI).
In APRI, only one part of the root-zone is alternately irrigated at
varying frequency and APRI can reduce evapotranspiration without
yield reduction (Kang et al., 1997, 2003a; Kang and Zhang, 2004).
Fruit trees might be more suitable for the application of APRI technique because of their deeper root system and wide spacing (Du
et al., 2005). In recent years, APRI has been investigated on apple
(Talluto et al., 2008; Girona et al., 2010; Yang et al., 2011), grapevine
(Dos Santos et al., 2003; Du et al., 2008; Intrigliolo and Castel, 2009),
pear (Kang et al., 2003a,b) and peach (Vera et al., 2013).

Corresponding author.
E-mail addresses: dutaisheng@cau.edu.cn, dts1975@126.com (T. Du).

Yield and WUE of fruit trees are positively affected during

certain growth stages if irrigation amount of APRI satises the
water requirement (Consoli et al., 2014), but yield and WUE would
be probably inuenced by water decit at the fruit expanding
and maturing stages. If such water decit induces a decrease of
transpiration rate below its maximum, it would be possible that
production will be negatively affected because yield and WUE are
depending on leaf photosynthesis, and amount and translocation
of assimilation products (Kang and Zhang, 2004; Dodd et al., 2015).
Several studies have been carried out to nd out the effects of
APRI on yield and WUE. Compared with conventional irrigation,
APRI increased the WUE of grapevine by 59%, but only reduced the
yield by 14% (Loveys et al., 1997). Meanwhile, keeping the irrigation
amount below 50% of sufcient irrigation, APRI reduced olive yield
by 11% (Ghrab et al., 2013). In contrast, APRI signicantly improved
grapevine yield by 13% and WUE by 30% in the arid region of northwest China (Du et al., 2013). Above all, APRI has usually improved
WUE, but no denite relationship existed was found between APRI
and yield. However, it is still challenging to characterize how APRI
affects yield for apple production.
Although there are many studies about the effects of APRI with
different irrigation amounts on plant evapotranspiration, leaf area
index, fruit yield and water use efciency (Jensen et al., 2010;

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.agwat.2016.05.011
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Hutton and Loveys, 2011; Du et al., 2013; Ghrab et al., 2013; Zhao
et al., 2015), fewer studies about the effects of APRI with different
irrigation frequencies are investigated for apple production in arid
region. Thus the objectives of this study were to (1) determine the
effects of APRI on apple yield and WUE, and (2) compare low and
high frequency APRI in terms of apple yield and WUE.
2. Materials and methods
2.1. Experimental site, meteorological data and soil water content
The experiments were conducted in an apple orchard at
Shiyanghe Experimental Station of China Agricultural University,
located in Gansu Province of northwest China (N37 52 , E102 50 ,
altitude 1581 m) during April to September in 2013 and 2014. The
experimental site is in a typical continental temperate climate zone
with an annual average sunshine duration of over 3000 h, frost
free days of 150 d, temperature of 8 C, annual accumulated effective temperature (>0 C) of 3550 C, precipitation of 164 mm, pan
evaporation of about 2000 mm measured by a cylinder Class A
evaporation pan with 120.7 cm in diameter and 25.0 cm in depth,
and groundwater table depth of 25 m. The soil texture is light sandy
loam, with bulk density of 1.46 g cm3 and mean eld capacity of
0.30 cm3 cm3 at 01.6 m layer (Liu et al., 2012).
Net radiation, temperature, relative humidity and wind speed
at the height of 4.0 m and soil heat ux at the depth of 0.1 m
were automatically recorded by meteorological monitoring system
(Jauntering, Taiwan) located in the center of the experimental site
(Fig. 1). Meteorological parameters at different growth stages of
apple tree during 2013 and 2014 are shown in Table 1. According
to empirical frequency calculation of long-term precipitation, 2013
was a dry year (p = 75%) and 2014 was a wet year (p = 25%).
The variations of environmental factors were small during
the whole growth season across the experimental years for net
radiation, air temperature, relative humidity and reference evapotranspiration (Table 1). However, the variation of precipitation was
large during the bud development and owering, and fruit expanding stages across the experimental years. The total precipitation
was 80 mm in 2013 and 242 mm in 2014. Rainfall mostly fell during the fruit expanding stage and less during the other three stages
(Table 1).
Soil water content of each subplot was monitored every 57 d by
Diviner 2000 system (Sentek Pty Ltd., Australia) at 0.1 m intervals of
the vertical soil layer. In each subplot, four PVC access tubes with
the depth of 160 cm were installed at the distances of 1.0 m and
1.5 m from the tree trunk both south and north sides, as shown
in Fig. 1. Additionally, gravimetric soil water content was measured by the oven-drying method and calibrated the data from
Diviner 2000 system (Sentek Pty Ltd., Australia) at each growth
stage. Two representative trees were selected for the measurements in each treatment. Seasonal variations of soil water content
for all the treatments in 2013 and 2014 are shown in Fig. 2. If the
soil water content was lower than 5055% of the eld capacity
(0.1500.165 cm3 cm3 ), it would cause water stress to tree growth
and nal yield.
2.2. Experimental design, selection of apple tree and eld
management
A eld of about 0.5 ha (68 66 m2 ) including 170 trees was chosen for this experiment where apple trees (Malus domestica Borkh.
cv Golden Delicious) were planted in 1981, with a row spacing of
6 m and a plant spacing of 4 m (Fig. 1). The apple trees are arranged
in east-west direction. To avoid the damage of other trees and
reduce workloads, only 18 representative trees were selected for

this study with similar trunk diameter and bark depth, and located
in the middle of the experimental site. The radius of sapwood and
heartwood were measured for all treatments (Table 2). Those 18
trees were separated in three blocks as three replicates (Fig. 1).
For two seasons, the eld experiment had six treatments (two
irrigation amounts and three irrigation methods) and was arranged
in a randomized block design, and replicated three times. Two
irrigation amounts were 400 and 500 mm. According to the conventional border irrigation amount 500 mm, which accounted for
80% of the average evapotranspiration (Liu et al., 2012), 400 mm
was set up for water decit in this experiment. Three irrigation
methods included (1) conventional irrigation with low frequency
(CI), irrigation water was uniformly supplied to the isolated subplot
(9 m2 , 3 m 3 m) surrounding the tree with total of 4 times during the whole growth season; (2) APRI with high frequency (PRIH ),
irrigation water was alternately supplied to two parts of isolated
subplot surrounding the tree with total of 8 times; (3) APRI with
low frequency (PRIL ), irrigation water was alternately supplied to
two parts of isolated subplot surrounding the tree with total of 4
times. Four times was the conventional border irrigation frequency
as a control and 8 times was set up for high frequency as a contrast. The irrigation water was supplied to each individual subplot
by irrigation pipelines from a well near the experimental site. The
pipelines were connected with a water meter to monitor the water
inow. Irrigation date, amount and frequency are shown in Table 3.
In order to minimize horizontal water and nutrient ow
between neighboring subplots, each subplot was isolated by impermeable lm with a depth of 1.5 m, 3 m in width and 3 m in length.
The tree was located in the center of the isolated subplot (Fig. 1).
There was a ridge of 0.3 m high above the surrounding boundary
to avoid water ux in and out of the isolated subplot. In addition,
the subplot for APRI treatment was divided into two equal parts for
alternating irrigation to keep one part wet and the other dry, and the
dividing line is in east-west direction. Impermeable lm was buried
under the depth of 0.5 m and there was a ridge of 0.3 m high above
the dividing line to separate water from the other side. Each year the
trees were fertilized with 800 kg ha1 CO(NH2 )2 , 200 kg ha1 P2 O5
and 150 kg ha1 K2 O, and had similar agronomic management in
the orchard.
2.3. Sampling and measurements
2.3.1. Fruit number and yield
Fruit number and yield per tree were calculated and weighted
after picking in 21 September, 2013 and 26 September, 2014,
respectively.
2.3.2. Leaf area index
The canopy hemispherical photographs of apple trees were
taken using Winscanopy canopy analysis system (Winscanopy
2006a, Regent, Quebec, Canada). The setting mode and the types
of lens in camera were same as the method of Liu et al. (2013).
Measurements were done after sunset or before sunrise to reduce
the effects of sunlight on measurement every 57 d. Two representative trees were selected for the measurements in each treatment
due to time consumption and workloads. LAI was calculated by
Winscanopy 2006a (Regent Instruments, Ste-Foy, Quebec).
2.3.3. Sap ow
Sap ow of apple trees was monitored by the sap ow sensors of
compensation heat pulse (Model SF100, Greenspan Technology Pty
Ltd., Warwick, Australia). Two probes were installed on the eastwest side of the trunk, and the depths were 1 cm and 1.5 cm in the
xylem, respectively. Sap ow sensors were installed in the trunk
at 20 cm above the ground (Liu et al., 2012), and the probes were
wrapped with foil to reduce the effects of environmental heat. Time

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Fig. 1. Plot layout, position of 18 selected apple trees, instrument installation of micro-lysimeter, sap ow sensor, PVC access tube and meteorological monitoring system.
Description of subplot isolation by impermeable lm. Three meter in square surrounding the tree was isolated by impermeable lm in the depth of 1.5 m (A). To avoid
horizontal water ow of alternate irrigation, middle of subplot was isolated in the depth of 0.5 m (B).

Table 1
Daily average net radiation (Rn ), air temperature (Ta ) and relative humidity (RH), accumulated precipitation (P) and reference evapotranspiration (ET0 ) during the different
growth stages of apple tree across 2013 and 2014.
Year

Growth stage

Rn (W m2 )

Ta ( C)

RH (%)

P (mm)

ET0 (mm)

2013

Bud development and owering (5 April14 May)

Leaf expansion (15 May20 June)
Fruit expanding (21 June1 September)
Fruit maturing (2 September22 September)
Whole growth season (5 April22 September)

123.9
125.5
122.9
96.9
120.3

16.0
19.2
20.8
16.9
19.3

31.2
46.1
63.9
59.3
52.3

6.0
18.2
40.4
15.8
80.4

156.0
141.5
255.6
57.1
610.2

2014

Bud development and owering (9 April20 May)

Leaf expansion (21 May30 June)
Fruit expanding (1 July5 September)
Fruit maturing (6 September27 September)
Whole growth season (9 April27 September)

119.0
137.7
133.7
85.1
125.8

12.9
19.8
19.8
15.7
17.7

46.1
50.4
65.7
69.0
57.4

55.8
22.6
152.2
11.2
241.8

144.6
170.8
248.7
48.7
612.9

duration of heat pulse was 2 s and the data was recorded every
15 min in the data logger. One representative tree was selected
for the measurements in each treatment due to high costs of the
equipment.
Sensing the pulse release from the middle probe of the sensors,
the closer downstream probe received higher temperature compared with the upstream probe, and the heat transmitted by sap
quickly impelled the calefaction of the upstream probe, so as to
make no differences of the temperature between the two probes
after a certain time. The heat pulse velocity (cm h1 ) was calculated by time (t), which was the period of the sap moving from
the heater to the mid-point between the sensors. After measuring trunk diameter, bark depth, radius of sapwood and heartwood
(Table 2) and receiving time (t), sapow sensor calculations software (Greenspan, Version 2.53) was used to calculate the sap
velocity and original sap ux (SF0 , L d1 ).
Daily trunk sap ow (SF, mm d1 ) is calculated as:
SF = 1000

SF0
SA

(1)

where SA is the area of the subplot (mm2 ).

Because trunk sap ow measured by sap ow sensors was close
to the transpiration (Liu et al., 2012), so daily tree transpiration (T  r ,
mm d1 ) is calculated as follows:
T r = SF

(2)

2.3.4. Soil evaporation

Soil evaporation was monitored every day by micro-lysimeter
of 10 cm in diameter and 20 cm in height. In each subplot, six
micro-lysimeters were installed at the distances of 0.5 m, 1.0 m and
1.5 m from the tree trunk both south and north sides, as shown in
Fig. 1. The micro-lysimeters were weighed using electronic scale
(PL 6001-L, Mettler Toledo Inc, Switzerland) with the accuracy of
0.1 g after sunset every day. Daily soil evaporation of one microlysimeter (Es , mm d1 ) is calculated as:
Es = 10

W/
(D/2)

(3)

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Fig. 2. Seasonal variations of soil water content () as affected by irrigation amounts of 400 (a, c) and 500 mm (b, d) as well as by irrigation methods in 2013 (a, b) and 2014
(c, d).
Table 2
Average trunk diameter, bark depth, radius of sapwood and heartwood for each treatment used in this experiment. CI: conventional irrigation, PRIH : alternate partial root-zone
irrigation with high frequency, PRIL : alternate partial root-zone irrigation with low frequency.
Irrigation amount (mm)

Irrigation method

Trunk diameter (mm)

Bark depth (mm)

Radius of sapwood (mm)

Radius of heartwood (mm)

400

CI
PRIH
PRIL

261
264
259

6.4
6.2
6.6

127
128
123

56
69
63

500

CI
PRIH
PRIL

260
268
264

6.1
6.5
6.5

131
127
117

62
51
49

where W is the difference of the two weights (g) in the microlysimeter in 24 h;  is the water density (g cm3 ), and D is the microlysimeter diameter (cm).


Daily soil evaporation of each treatment ES , mmd1 is the
average value of the six micro-lysimeters, which is calculated
as:

6


ES =

i=1

Es

2.3.5. Evapotranspiration
Daily tree evapotranspiration is the sum of daily tree transpiration and daily soil evaporation:
ET  = T  r + E  s

where ET  is daily tree evapotranspiration (mm d1 ).

ET (mm) at a certain period is equal to the sum of daily tree
evapotranspiration from t0 to t1 :
ET =

(4)

(5)

t1


ET 

(6)

i=t0

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Fig. 3. Seasonal variations of sap ow (SF) as affected by irrigation amounts of 400 (a, c) and 500 mm (b, d) as well as by irrigation methods in 2013 (a, b) and 2014 (c, d).

where t0 and t1 are the start and end time of ET at the certain period,
respectively.
2.3.6. Water use efciency
Water use efciency on the basis of tree evapotranspiration
(WUEET , kg m3 ) is calculated as:
WUEET =

Y
1

10
ET

(7)

(kg ha1 );

ET is the tree evapotranspiration (mm).

where Y is yield
Water use efciency on the basis of irrigation amount (WUEI ,
kg m3 ) is calculated as:
WUEI =

1
Y1 Y2

10
I

(8)

where I is the total irrigation amount (mm); Y1 is yield under irrigation (kg ha1 ); Y2 is yield under rainfed which normally is set as
zero in this very dry area (kg ha1 ).
2.4. Statistical analysis
Analysis of variance (ANOVA) was done using the general linear model (GLM) procedure from Statistics Analysis System (SAS).

Table 3
Irrigation date, amount and frequency for the treatments. CI: conventional irrigation, PRIH : alternate partial root-zone irrigation with high frequency, PRIL : alternate
partial root-zone irrigation with low frequency.
Irrigation date

Irrigation amount (mm)

2013

2014

26 April
13 May
31 May
19 June
27 June
14 July
1 August
17 August

25 April
24 May
5 June
26 June
13 July
29 July
7 August
31 August

400

500

CI

PRIH

PRIL

CI

PRIH

PRIL

100

50
50
50
50
50
50
50
50

100

125

125

100

125

100

125

100

125

62.5
62.5
62.5
62.5
62.5
62.5
62.5
62.5

100
100
100

125
125
125

ANOVAs were done with year, irrigation amount and irrigation

method as the main effects and including two- and three-way
interactions. Levels of signicance in gures are given by ns for
not signicant, *, ** and *** for signicant at P < 0.10, P < 0.05 and
P < 0.01, respectively. When the treatment differences were found,
the statistical signicances were calculated using the least signicant differences (LSD) at the 0.05 probability level.

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Fig. 5. Relationship between leaf area index (LAI) and transpiration (T) at the stages
of leaf expansion and fruit expanding across 2013 and 2014 (n = 23).

Fig. 4. Evaporation (E), transpiration (T) and evapotranspiration (ET) at whole

growth season as affected by year, irrigation amount and irrigation method. Bars
labeled with different letters indicate statistically signicant differences (p < 0.05)
between years, irrigation amounts and among irrigation methods. Error bars represent the standard error of means. For evaporation (E) and evapotranspiration
(ET), n = 18, 18, 12 for comparison of years, irrigation amounts and irrigation methods, respectively. For transpiration (T), n = 6, 6, 4 for comparison of years, irrigation
amounts and irrigation methods, respectively.

3. Results and discussion

3.1. Sap ow and evapotranspiration
The sap ow of apple trees showed an upward trend at the
bud development and owering stage (Fig. 3), reached the maximum at the middle growth stage and then tended to be stable, and
decreased gradually due to leaves withering and fruit growth cessation at the fruit maturing stage (Fig. 3), which is consistent with the
result of Liu et al. (2012) on variation of apple tree sap ow in the
arid region of northwest China. In 2013, mean daily sap ow for
all the treatments reached the maximal value of 3.04.0 mm d1
at the early fruit expanding stage. And in 2014, the treatments
with irrigation amount of 400 mm had the earlier peak sap ow
of 2.53.0 mm d1 at the leaf expansion stage because leaves grew
quickly at this stage to cause more transpiration, while the treatments with irrigation amount of 500 mm had the maximal sap
ow of 2.54.0 mm d1 at the early fruit expanding stage due to
the highest transpiration at vigorous growth stage. The maximal
daily sap ow in 2014 appeared earlier because of abundant rainfall in 2014. The treatments with high irrigation amount had higher
daily sap ow than those with low irrigation amount after 1st irrigation, and reached the maximal difference at the fruit expanding
stage, showing that high irrigation amount could increase sap ow
of apple tree under the same irrigation method. In addition, under

the same irrigation amount, the sap ow of different irrigation

methods had the most obvious differences at the fruit expanding
stage in 20132014, and conventional irrigation (CI) had obviously
higher sap ow than APRI with low irrigation frequency (PRIL ) and
APRI with high irrigation frequency (PRIH ), suggesting that APRI can
obviously reduce sap ow of apple tree at the fruit expanding stage
since APRI increases leaf ABA with a reduction of stomatal conductance (Collins et al., 2010). However, due to high water demand at
the early fruit expanding stage, the apple trees of CI under low irrigation amount experienced more water stress during 29 June20
July in 2013 compared to PRIH and PRIL . Besides, at the fruit expanding stage, mean daily sap ow of PRIH was greater than that of PRIL
under the same irrigation amount, so APRI with high frequency can
increase sap ow at the fruit expanding stage. Frequent irrigation
can stimulate roots to absorb more water, which is the main driver
(Assouline et al., 2012).
As shown in Fig. 4ac, there were no signicant differences of
soil evaporation, tree transpiration and evapotranspiration over
the whole growth season between two years. The treatments with
irrigation amount of 500 mm signicantly increased soil evaporation, tree transpiration and evapotranspiration in comparison of
the treatments with irrigation amount of 400 mm.
In addition, soil evaporation was signicantly higher in CI than
in both PRIH and PRIL which is in agreement with the earlier study
on cotton (Tang et al., 2010), while no signicant difference was
found between PRIH and PRIL (Fig. 4a). No signicant difference
was also found on tree transpiration among the irrigation methods
(Fig. 4b). This can be explained by APRI decreasing luxury transpiration by reducing stomatal aperture (Tang et al., 2005; Du et al.,
2006; Collins et al., 2010). Meanwhile, the transpiration of PRIH was
slightly higher than that of PRIL (Fig. 4b). The tree evapotranspiration was signicantly higher in CI than in PRIL , and PRIH had slightly
higher tree evapotranspiration than PRIL (Fig. 4c), which is partly
in agreement with the study on citrus (Yang et al., 2002). However,
irrigation amount and frequency affect not only tree evapotranspiration and its components, but also affect tree leaf area index
(LAI).
3.2. Leaf area index
Signicant correlation (R2 = 0.757, p < 0.001) was detected
between LAI and transpiration at the stages of leaf expansion and
fruit expanding across 2013 and 2014 (Fig. 5), which supported the
result of an earlier study (Kume et al., 2008). However, there was
no correlation between LAI and transpiration at the stages of bud
development and owering, and fruit maturing because the leaves
were not developed during the stage of bud development and ow-

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Fig. 6. Leaf area index (LAI) at whole growth season as affected by year, irrigation
amount and irrigation method. Bars labeled with different letters indicate statistically signicant differences (p < 0.05) between years, irrigation amounts and among
irrigation methods. Error bars represent the standard error of means.

ering, and the leaves withered during the stage of fruit maturing.
Overall, no difference was detected between two years (Fig. 6),
while average LAI across the whole growth season was signicantly
higher in the treatments with irrigation amount of 500 mm than
400 mm. More irrigation amount increased LAI signicantly (Fig. 6),
and then increased tree transpiration at the same time (Figs. 4b and
5). It probably associated with high irrigation amount accelerating
more CO2 assimilation accumulation in leaves (Williams, 2014).
Furthermore, LAI was signicantly higher in CI than in PRIL , which is
attributed to the decrease of leaf vegetative growth under APRI (Dos
Santos et al., 2003; Tang et al., 2005). Meanwhile, PRIL decreased LAI
slightly compared with PRIH (Fig. 6). Thus APRI with low frequency
may reduce photosynthate transfer to leaves (Lo Bianco et al., 2012).
3.3. Fruit yield and water use efciency
Since there were no signicant interactions between treatments
and experimental years (Table 4), the average fruit yield, number and single fruit weight were calculated across the years and
the treatments (Fig. 7). The fruit yield tended to be slightly higher
in 2014 than in 2013, but no signicant differences between two
years in the fruit yield, number and single fruit weight were found
(Fig. 7a). The fruit number was signicantly higher in the treatments with irrigation amount of 500 mm than 400 mm (Fig. 7b), but
the single fruit weight was signicantly lower in 500 mm (Fig. 7c).
However, no signicant difference of fruit yield was found between
different irrigation amounts (Fig. 7a), while the yield was relatively
high in 500 mm due to more CO2 assimilation accumulation in fruits
(Lo Bianco et al., 2012). Indeed, fruit yield does not only depend on
irrigation amount (Jiang et al., 2012), but also depends on irrigation
frequency (Amin et al., 2015; Yavuz et al., 2015). If the single irrigation amount exceeds the water holding capacity, percolation has to
be paid more attention in sandy soil (Ji et al., 2007). The fruit yield
was signicantly higher in PRIH than in CI with a relative increase
of 20% (Fig. 7a). Meanwhile, no signicant difference was found
between PRIH and PRIL , while it was slightly higher in PRIH than
in PRIL . No signicant difference was found on fruit number and
single fruit weight among the irrigation methods. In addition, the
trees of all treatments were not thinned to maintain certain fruit
number, and there was negative relationship between fruit number
and single fruit weight under different irrigation amounts and irrigation methods. The evaluation of irrigation amount and frequency
should not only consider fruit yield and yield components, but also
consider WUE (Garca-Tejero et al., 2011).
Two methods are used to describe water use efciency (WUE),
namely WUE on the basis of the irrigation amount (WUEI ) and the

Fig. 7. Yield, fruit number and single fruit weight as affected by year, irrigation
amount and irrigation method. Bars labeled with different letters indicate statistically signicant differences (p < 0.05) between years, irrigation amounts and among
irrigation methods. Error bars represent the standard error of means.

evapotranspiration (WUEET ) (Du et al., 2006, 2013). There were no

signicant differences on WUEET and WUEI between two years as
well as between the irrigation amount of 400 and 500 mm (Fig. 8),
while both WUEET and WUEI tended to be higher in 2014. No signicant differences can be explained as follows, (1) the yearly pan
evaporation was about 2000 mm in such arid region (Liu et al., 2012)
and the rainfall interception and canopy storage capacity were considerable (Wang et al., 2012; Attarod et al., 2015); (2) possibly more
percolation in the treatment with high irrigation amount due to the
relatively sandy soil and low soil water holding capacity (Ji et al.,
2007).
WUE can be improved by increasing irrigation frequency for
sandy soil at the same irrigation amount (Ertek et al., 2004). In
this study, WUEET of PRIH was signicantly higher than that of CI
(Fig. 8b) because roots suffering from slight water stress in APRI
can produce more ABA, which may result in leaf stomatal closure
(Stoll et al., 2000; Tang et al., 2005; Collins et al., 2010) and therefore increase WUE (Davies et al., 2000, 2002), while no signicant
differences were detected on WUEET between PRIL and CI as well
as between PRIH and PRIL . Furthermore, WUEET was slightly higher

Please cite this article in press as: Du, S., et al., Water use efciency is improved by alternate partial root-zone irrigation of apple in arid
northwest China. Agric. Water Manage. (2016), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.agwat.2016.05.011

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Table 4
F-statistics to assess the effects of year, irrigation amount and irrigation method on apple yield, fruit number, single fruit weight, WUEET , WUEI , evapotranspiration (ET),
evaporation (E) and leaf area index (LAI).
Source

DF

Yield

Fruit number

Single fruit weight

WUEET

WUEI

ET

LAI

Year (Yr)
Irri. Amount (IA)
Irri. Method (IM)
Yr IA
Yr IM
IA IM
Yr IA IM

1
1
2
1
2
2
2

0.62 ns
0.32 ns
4.97*
0.65 ns
1.03 ns
0.94 ns
0.37 ns

0.25 ns
6.10*
0.57 ns
0.09 ns
0.46 ns
0.58 ns
0.06 ns

1.08 ns
6.25*
0.39 ns
3.82 ns
0.12 ns
0.31 ns
0.10 ns

0.84 ns
1.59 ns
5.10*
1.29 ns
0.80 ns
1.31 ns
0.22 ns

0.63 ns
0.18 ns
0.44 ns
0.15 ns
0.76 ns
1.24 ns
0.21 ns

38.60**
163.28***
16.06*
14.38*
2.33 ns
0.09 ns
0.32 ns

0.00 ns
6.66**
3.63**
0.17 ns
0.27 ns
0.59 ns
0.59 ns

226.17***
326.89***
51.38**
4.03 ns
2.89 ns
9.16*
12.42*

ns: not signicant.

*
Signicant at 0.10 probability level.
**
Signicant at 0.05 probability level.
***
Signicant at 0.01 probability level.

4. Conclusions
Compared with low irrigation amount (400 mm), high irrigation
amount (500 mm) improved apple yield. Alternate partial rootzone irrigation (APRI) could increase apple yield signicantly and
enhance water use efciency (WUE) in comparison of conventional
irrigation. Furthermore, compared with low frequency, APRI with
high frequency could improve apple yield and WUE. Thus alternate partial root-zone irrigation with high frequency is a promising
technique to increase fruit yield and WUE where the region has
favorable climate and soil condition for apple production. However, it is necessary to conduct more studies on evaluating the
characteristics of water saving and high yield under APRI with high
frequency as well as understanding the mechanism of root morphology and plant growth parameters relevant to the water-saving
strategy during different growth stages for apple production in arid
regions.
Acknowledgments
We are grateful for the research grants from the National Natural
Science Foundation of China (51439006, 91425302, 51321001), the
Discipline Innovative Engineering Plan (111 Program, B14002) and
Chinese Universities Scientic Fund (2015TC051).
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Fig. 8. WUEET and WUEI as affected by year, irrigation amount and irrigation
method. Bars labeled with different letters indicate statistically signicant differences (p < 0.05) between years, irrigation amounts and among irrigation methods.
Error bars represent the standard error of means.

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