Influence of Irrigation Depths on the Growth of Chrysanthemum, Cultivated in Pots, in a Greenhouse in the Northwest Region of Espírito Santo

Abstract

Chrysanthemum is one of the most important plants in the national and international market of ornamental plants since it has relevant commercial value and presents short cycle and extensive diversity of inflorescences and colors. The present work aimed to evaluate the productive performance of the Puritan cultivar grown in pots under different irrigation depths, in greenhouse conditions in the northwest region of Espírito Santo. The experiment was set up in a completely randomized design with 6 treatments defined by crop evapotranspiration daily replacements (ETc) of 50% 75%, 100%; 125%, 150% and 175%, with 20 repetitions (pots) each treatment. An auto compensating trickle irrigation system was used, a dripper per pot, discharging 1.3 liters per hour. The evaluations were made at 90 days after planting, when measurements of fresh and dry mass of roots, fresh and dry mass of shoot system, plant height, stem diameter, dry mass of the flowers and flowers diameter were performed. The analysis of variance at 5% probability, showed significant quadratic effect for the dry matter characteristics of the aerial part and height of the plant and significant linear positive effect for the other evaluated characteristics. Under the conditions of the study, daily replacements of 175% of the crop evapotranspiration, which corresponded to daily average depths of 12.25 mm, conferred the best results in all evaluated parameters.