Drip and Sprinkler Irrigation for Establishment of Strawberry Transplants in Southern California.

Strawberry (Fragaria×ananassa) transplants in California are planted through narrow holes in raised beds covered with polyethylene mulch.  They are irrigated with overhead sprinklers for the first 5 to 6 weeks after planting to leach salts and facilitate root establishment; most of this sprinkler-applied water runs off the plastic without reaching the plant and is not recovered.  The plants are subsequently irrigated with two or three buried drip tapes during the following 8 months.  During a four week period, we compared the effect of drip irrigation with four tapes at or below soil surface[A1]  to sprinkler irrigation applied immediately after planting in October. Soil water tension <5 KPa was maintained in all treatments.  We measured water use, electrical conductivity of the solution for soil sampled in the plant row, soil moisture, plant canopy size, incidence of leaf spot diseases and early fruit yield.   Root zone EC and moisture levels _e were similar in sprinkler at 4 drip line treatments soon after planting.  Depending on the year, water use was reduced by 40 to 78% in drip plots compared to sprinkler and runoff was nearly eliminated.  Plants in drip plots were similar or larger in size and root biomass to those in sprinkler irrigated plots and had lower incidence of leaf spot than sprinkler-irrigated plants. Early yields were similar in the two irrigation systems.  Thus, drip irrigation with four tapes per four-row bed conserves water during strawberry establishment without negative effects on plant performance.

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