‘Superior Seedless’ grafted on three selected grapevine rootstocks grown on calcareous soil under diluted brackish water irrigation. I. Growth performances

Abstract

Mixing brackish water with conventional quality water for irrigation in ratios to maintain satisfactory vigor of grapevines might be a feasible man- agement practice. The objective of this study was to evaluate the performance of three grape rootstocks that are used worldwide and locally; R110, 41B and P1103, irrigated with three salinity levels: 1.5, 3.0 and 5.0 dS m-1 in addition to the 0.8 dS m-1 control. A randomized complete block design was used with three blocks of 12 pots each. ‘Superior Seedless’ grafted on P1103 showed bet- ter performance regarding chlorophyll content, stem length and number of young leaves and even growth after bud break. It does seem that grapevine rootstocks that have either V. rupestris or V. berlandieri in their parentage are good candidates for salinity tolerance. It can be concluded that irrigation with diluted brackish water can be practiced for a certain period of time (two months from April to June); according to our findings under conditions of the experiment, to be followed by irrigation with good quality water in order to flush excessive salts out of the root zone.