Effect of water irrigation techniques on growth and yield of rock melon (Cucumis melo Linn cv. Glamour)

Water deficit has been one of the important issues in climate change. Drought crisis, pollution and desertification is becoming more serious and hence become a great threat to global food supply, human health and may also threatens global peace (Davtalabsabet et al., 2013Davtalab et al., 2014). Crop production in many of Middle East and Asia regions is essentially dependant on at least supplemental irrigation systems or new techniques so as to increase the efficient use of available water. Effective use of limited water supply could be done in several approaches through irrigation technologies and proper irrigation schedule (Dry and Loveys, 1999). One of the latest techniques introduced to manipulate crop water use is the regulated deficit irrigation (RDI) (English et al., 1990). In this technique, the irrigation input is removed or reduced for specific periods (Battilani, 2000), and is widely used in the horticultural industry to improve fruit quality (Turner, 2001). The technique, regulated deficit irrigation (RDI) was developed to overcome shortcoming of an earlier technique, partial root zone drying (PRD) where half of the root zone is irrigated, while the other half is allowed to dry out for a certain period of time (Loveys et al., 2000). There is a need to study the effect of different water irrigation techniques using rock melon (Cucumis melo Linn cv. Glamour) as a trial crop which is have highly economic value. This paper will discuss the effectiveness of two irrigation techniques, regulated deficit irrigation (RDI) and partial root zone drying (PRD) in promoting growth and yield of rock melon as compared to well-watered (WW) plants. (Copied from article)