Productivity of the common bean in conditions of irrigation with deficit

Abstract

Historically cultivated by small farmers, bean crops are now cultivated with varied levels of technology, including practices such as irrigation and direct sowing, as well as the soil management and traditional practices to increase productivity. Along with the adoption of these techniques, an increase in the usage of irrigation has occurred, which purports to meet the water requirements of the crop throughout its life cycle. The main objective of this work was to study the effects of different irrigation depths during two phases of the bean crop cycle and the behavior of cv. IAC-Alvorada during winter in the first and second year of direct sowing in Botucatu – SP, a southeastern region of Brazil. The experimental soil area is classified as a red distroferric nitosol with a clayey texture. The delineated experimental design consisted of complete randomized blocks, 16 treatments, and a witness with four replications. Each block portion was divided into 1.8 m by 4 m. The irrigation treatments were performed daily with the assistance of a Class A tank. The following characteristics were evaluated: the productivity of the grains, number of pods per plant, number of grains per plant, number of grains per pod, grain yield, weight of 100 grains, empty pods per plant, and water use efficiency. The number of pods and the grain yield decreased with the increase of water stress at a 5% probability. The reduction of applied depth in phase vegetative did not interfere with grain productivity. The highest reductions in phase reproductive of water more intensely affected the productivity of grains and the number of pods per plant. So, the highest productivity was 3,322 kg ha^-1 in the combination of a depth of 40% applied in phase vegetative with 100% applied depth in phase reproductive.