Deficit irrigation effects on soil chemistry properties yield and, yield components and fruit firmness of cucumber and (cucumis sativus l.)‎ under arid condition of Al-Hassa, Saudi Arabia

الملخص EN

A field experiment was carried out in the greenhouse at the agricultural and veterinary training and research Station, King Faisal University, Al-Hassa, Saudi Arabia in season of 2011/2012, to investigate the effects of six water irrigation deficit treatments on physical, mechanical properties, yield and yield components of cucumber (cucumis sativus l.).

complete block design using three replicates.

the deficit irrigation treatments were T1 (100% ETc), T2 (70% ETc), T3 (70% ETc after full germination until end of season for every stages), T4 (70% ETc at vegetative stage until season end), T5(70% ETc at flowering stage until season end), and T6 (70% ETc at first harvest until season end).

the results revealed that the deficit irrigation has significant effect on yield and yield component and has no significant effect on fruit firmness.

the highest values of plant length (cm), no of fruits /plant, total fruit weigh (kg) /plant, marketable fruits weight (kg)/plant and ratio of marketable fruit yield/ fruit yield were found when plants treated with T1 and T2 with no significant differences between them.

The treatments appeared significant effect on the physical characteristics (length, width, thickness, arithmetic mean diameter, geometric mean diameter, aspect ratio, cylinderity.

the highest mean values of physical properties were found with plants exposed to T1 and T2.

the highest water use efficiency was found in treated plant with T2.

surface soil treated with T1, T3, T4, T5, and T6 has lower acidity (pH), electrical conductivity (EC), sodium adsorption ratio (SAR) and lower contents of total N, and availability of nutrients K, P, Fe, Mn, Zn and Cu than the treated soil with T2 .