Abstract :
The effect of supplementary summer and spring irrigation on the productivity of the olive tree (Sourani variety) was studied. The study was conducted in the village of Kfar Rouhin, located in Sahel Al-Rouj, west of Idlib, during the years 2012-2013. In this research, we adopted the design of the complete random sectors and conducted 5 transactions, and in each treatment, we had five replicates and each repeater was an olive tree. During the experiment, supplementary irrigation was applied so that the transactions differed between them by the number of irrigations (0, 1, 2, 3, and 4 irrigations) and their dates (April; April and June; April, June, and July; April, June, July, and August). The results showed that the treatment of spring irrigation (one irrigation in April) was significantly higher than the other irrigation treatments in most studied growth and flowering indicators. This treatment achieved an increase in the vegetative growth (5.6 cm), in the foliar surface (2.59 cm2), in a number of flowering clusters/branch (13.96), in the number of flowers/flowering clusters (8.08), in the number of flowers/branch (358.33), in the fruits-set percentage (0.72%), and in the number of fruits/branch (25.05), compared to the control. The results also showed that the summer irrigation treatment (irrigation in April, June, July, and August) achieved a significant increase in the fruiting and productivity criteria: fruit weight (2.86 g), fruit size (2.65 mL), pulp/fruit ratio (7.92%), the productivity per tree (57.98 kg), oil percentage (10.33%) as compared to the control. Finally, the results showed the superiority of the first year of the study 2012 over the second year 2013 in the indicators of the number of flowering clusters/branch, the number of flowers/flowering cluster, the number of flowers/branch, the number of fruits/branch, and the productivity per tree. While the second year of the study exceeded in the rest of the studied indicators. Thus, the phenomenon of alternate bearing, by which the olive trees are characterized, had a clear effect, but all experimental treatments reduced the difference in all studied indicators compared with the control.
Keyword :
Olive Tree, Supplementary Irrigation, Vegetative Growth, Productivity, Oil percentage