Strategies for Reduction of Irrigation Applications for Bare-root Strawberry Transplant Establishment in Central Florida

Typically, establishment of bare-rooted strawberry transplants in central Florida is accomplished using overhead irrigation applied continuously at a rate of 0.5 cm/hr/ha for 10 to 12 hours day. This practice results in significant amounts of water withdrawals from a hydrologically sensitive growing area.  A multi-season study was conducted to investigate reducing these typical overhead irrigation amounts used by three distinctive approaches:  1) using intermittent irrigation (cycling applications on and off) for specific time periods using an alternative lower volume sprinkler head; 2) using crop protectants applied to transplants at a determined stage of the establishment period; and 3) a combination of treatments 1 and 2. Results showed that the use of the alternative sprinkler head (NanDan Jain Super 10) alone reduced application rates from 0.5 cm/hr/ha to 0.35 cm/hr/ha and that use of intermittent irrigation with a 10 min on/off cycle resulted in no detrimental effect on transplant establishment, thus saving an additional 50% of the amount of water normally applied. Use of a crop protectant ‘Surround’, a clay-based foliar spray resulted in reducing the number of days needed for establishment from 10–12 days to 7 days, thus reducing application amounts to 30%–40%.  A study combining both approaches 1 and 2 and the use of the crop protectant resulted in a minimum 70% reduction of normal applications.  These results give commercial producers several approaches used alone or in combination to reduce the amount of water applied for transplant establishment purposes.