Crop yield response to water - Cra

FIGURE 3Time course development of shoot length for both short (open symbols) and long (solid symbols)shoots of different cultivars for fully irrigated (Control) and two RDI regimes that imposed stressin Stage I (T1) and both Stage I and Stage II (T2). Vertical bars are plus and minus one standarderror of the mean.of the total for California pistachio growers and thus, the reductions in consumptive use andpruning attributed to the early season stress would likely increase grower profit (Beede et al.,2004). Recent research with the UCB rootstock found some reduction in the total number ofgrowing shoots per tree with both Stage I and Stage II stress that could reduce future yield ifit continued for a number of years. This confirmed earlier work (Goldhamer et al., 1987) thatstress-related reductions in fruit load were primarily because of the reduction in the initiationof short shoots rather than potential or actual number of nuts per rachis.Goldhamer and Beede imposed dryland conditions during Stage I with Kerman on Atlanticarootstock. They found that nut size was reduced by 6.1 percent relative to fully irrigated treesbut that shell splitting was increased by 14.0 percent. They theorized that the stress impactedshell growth more than kernel growth, resulting in a greater splitting percentage. Since noother yield components were significantly affected, they reported slightly better total kernelPISTACHIO 421